


No War at Home

by DarkJediQueen



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Discussion of Torture, First Time, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance, Sentinels & Guides are Known, Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:13:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29753880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkJediQueen/pseuds/DarkJediQueen
Summary: Sentinel Stiles Stilinski was coming home after being discharged from the military. He had done his time, now all he wanted to do was settle into life at the Sheriff's Department with his father. Then he meets Guide Peter Hale.
Relationships: Stiles Stilinski/Peter Hale
Comments: 22
Kudos: 252





	No War at Home

**Author's Note:**

> **Year** : 2016  
>  **Spoilers** : Everything  
>  **Notes** : None  
>  **Beta** : ScarsLikeVelvet

# 2005

Peter Hale laughed as he shoved at Cora. The little girl stumbled and fell onto the ground and rolled onto her back to stick her tongue out at Peter.

"Where is your brother?"

"Spencer is inside," Cora said. She pushed herself to her elbows and then stood up. She cocked her head to the side. "Oh, you mean Derek. Ugh, he's brooding somewhere."

"Why?"

"That's all he's been doing lately."

Peter nodded his head, and he looked toward the treehouse that he had helped build for the kids. He had been nothing more than a kid himself, but he had fun doing it with his father. There were only a few months between Peter and Talia's eldest Laura and then just about three years between him and Derek, Talia's second child. Peter had grown up as a brother to them instead of Uncle. He had been born late in life to their parents. What they had assumed as menopause setting in had been a pregnancy. They had chosen to keep him, despite the issues that it could have caused. Thankfully for Peter, his mother had survived the pregnancy with little ill effect, even if she had spent five months of it on bed rest.

"Well, I'm going to go and talk to him. You go inside and help your mother with dinner."

Peter had only been home a few days. It was winter break for college, but he had stayed behind to help his law professor with something. Graduating high school early meant college early, and that also meant that he was now in his first year of law school. He was good at it, but he wasn't sure it was what he wanted to do. He liked it but as a dalliance. He was going to complete it, though, for the memory of his parents. Peter rubbed at his chest and closed his eyes for a few seconds before he opened them again. He could feel something moving under his skin, and he wasn't sure what it was. He tried to push it away again. It had been building in him for a while now. The first time he had felt it, he had been reeling from finding out that his parents had been killed in a car accident. He had stayed at school for the week and finished out some tests. Talked to his professors and took the assignments home that would be done and making time to take tests when he was back. He had been given two weeks off by every one of his professors as long as he handed in assignments at the end of the two weeks by the Internet and then took the tests on his own when he got back. It had gotten worse, though, and harder to push away now that he was home again. He wasn't sure what was going on, but so far, he had been fine.

Derek was up in the treehouse, where Peter had found him a few other times he had been looking for him. He started up the ladder that would take him up. It was big enough for adults, and that had served Derek well since he had started a growth spurt and was now tall enough that if they had made it smaller, he wouldn't be able to fit in there. A twin mattress was in the bedroom area, and while it barely fit any of the kids besides Spencer and Cora, it was where Peter found Derek.

There was a scent of perfume in the room that Peter didn't know. It was too floral for Talia, and Laura didn't like florals at all. Peter felt the thing that was inside of him break out. He looked at Derek, who looked kind of broken sitting there on the bed, and he felt the need to protect him. Derek was a latent Sentinel. Everyone in the family knew it. He had been tested as a kid. Laura and Cora were as well, but Peter didn't think they would come online unless something happened. Derek's Sentinel though, could be seen even to a mundane like Peter.

"Peter?" Derek asked as he looked at Peter with wide eyes.

Derek was a mass of emotion; there were too many for Peter to process, so he started to push away the weakest ones until he found the one he was looking for. Peter pulled out his cell phone, and Derek looked worried. He dropped to his haunches as he waited for the call to connect.

"Peter?"

"Get the Sheriff here, now." Peter hung up and looked at Derek again. He opened his arms, and Derek looked at him for a few seconds before he moved into Peter's embrace. Peter fell back on his ass, but Derek was there in his arms, feeling like shame and sorrow, and many other emotions that Peter now had a name to put to it. He closed his eyes and breathed. He did his calming exercises like he had learned while in yoga. He had started to take his freshman year of college. He had needed it to help him with his load and being a couple of years younger than the rest. Peter tightened his hold on Derek and didn't let him go. Peter would deal with what was happening with himself at a later date.

It seemed that in everything to do with Talia's job, Derek had been forgotten. Peter wanted to curse his sister and brother-in-law. They had neglected the one kid that needed them the most. Derek's girlfriend had been killed over the summer by a rabies-infected mountain lion. They had been hiking through the private lands of the Preserve and had been separated when the mountain lion had attacked. Derek had gone one way and Paige the other. Her body had been found. Derek had retreated so far into himself that only Peter had been able to get him out of it. If it wasn't for the first year of law school, Peter would have delayed going back and stayed in Beacon Hills. He regretted it all now.

Peter shushed Derek as he started to cry, and he put him to sleep. Peter knew then what had happened. He had been tested, he was sure of it, but given what he was feeling from everyone around him, his test had been wrong. Peter swallowed as he tried to pull himself back into his body and stop feeling anything but the quiet contentment that was now coming off of Derek as he slept. Time lost meaning as Peter calmed himself down. He just wanted Derek to feel better.

Cora slipped up, and into the treehouse, she stayed by the door, like she was protecting them. Talia and Greg were both latent, neither of them needed by the world at large to come online. Peter wondered what his sister would think of him coming online as a Guide while she never had. Greg was the Sentinel, and they felt like they were a match, and if they came online, the other would.

"It's the Sheriff," Cora whispered after a little while. She moved away from the door after sticking her head out. Another person scrambled up the ladder, and Peter wasn't shocked to see that it was Spencer. The little boy had latched onto Derek as his favorite sibling from nearly birth. Behind him was the newly elected Sheriff. After a horrible car wreck had injured the previous Sheriff enough for him to not be able to stay as Sheriff, a quick election had been held. Noah Stilinski had run unopposed. He had been the second in command for the Sheriff for a while, and he was known to be a good and fair man. He was a Sentinel that had never found his Guide but had found a woman that he loved. They had one child. Even with his wife's death that fall, he had still run for Sheriff and had been good since he had been elected the previous month. He had taken over immediately instead of waiting for the normal passing off time.

"Peter, right?" Noah asked as he settled down in the little living room area of the treehouse.

"Yes, Sheriff," Peter said.

"Noah is fine. So what's going on?"

Peter snorted. There was no way that Noah didn't know that he was online and barely holding on. Focusing on Derek and keeping him asleep at the moment was the only thing that was keeping Peter going. "Well, two things, one you already know."

Noah nodded his head.

"Good, and the second thing is that Derek-" Peter stopped and looked at Cora and Spencer. He sighed. This was way too much for them at their age, but it was going to be impossible for him to keep it from them. They were going to be Derek's best bet at getting over this. "You were the one that found Paige."

"Yes."

"Well, I nearly stayed and took a year off. Derek's not been doing well with it, and I assumed that my sister and her husband would do a better job of helping him than they obviously were. I came in, and I smelled perfume in here. There was also a feeling of despair. It wasn't until I came online that I realized what I had found. Can you smell her?" Peter asked.

"Yes."

"Good. Good. Then you can find her. Whatever is going on with Derek at the moment, she's tied to it, and I don't think that she has his best interests at heart."

"Come down to the station when you get a chance, Peter. Bring Derek and one of his parents. We can get a statement from him then."

Noah slipped out again, and as soon as he was down the ladder, Spencer was there, crawling into Peter's lap to wrap himself around Derek. Spencer was a latent Guide, and it seemed like he could kind of sense what was going on. Cora looked pissed off. He figured that she knew just enough to figure out what Peter had kind of talked around.

The coming days were going to be hard. At least he had most of the Christmas break to get things going. His apartment was big enough that he could move Derek in with him. He wasn't sure that he trusted Talia and Gregory to deal with the issues from this anymore.

* * *

Peter listened as Derek told the Sheriff and another Deputy about Kate. How she was one of his teachers, and she had been paying a lot of attention to him over the last few months. At first, it had just seemed to be innocent, but then she had started to touch him. He knew that it was wrong, but she was giving him attention when he wasn't getting any from anyone else. Peter wanted to rip someone apart, and he would probably start with his sister and her husband. Derek had refused to let them in and had only wanted Peter there. Peter was barely old enough to be anything to him, but at least he was over eighteen.

"Well, son, you are not in trouble. You stopped things from happening that you were not ready for, and that's a good thing. I have a few questions for your Uncle, and then we will talk again. You can stay in the room, though, and I do want your opinion."

"Okay." Derek leaned over and laid his head on Peter's shoulder as the Sheriff gave him a reassuring smile.

"First things first, this is the teacher." Noah slipped an image across. It looked like the one that had been taken for her ID for teaching at the school.

Peter looked at it. There was something in the face that he knew, but he wasn't sure where from. Peter knew it was her first year teaching, and she was a substitute for the High School.

"We ran a background check on her and found that the one the school ran wasn't as complete as it should have been. The local agency that runs that for them is being looked at. Her identity was obviously faked. Now, I found a note in your file, Peter, about an incident a few years back where you nearly got into a fistfight with an adult when you were thirteen."

"Gerard Argent. He was harassing my mother. The Argents moved away after that. He was a controlling asshole who didn't like the way that my mother ruled the town when she was mayor. He felt like she was doing a poor job even though she had boosted up the whole town."

"This is his daughter, Kate."

"Fuck," Peter said. He looked at Noah. During the few hours of training himself, he had learned how to read people with their emotions. Noah was a volcano about to erupt from being pissed off. "She's just graduated college, does she even have a teaching degree?"

"No. Her entire identity was faked. The only thing that is the same is the age and her first name. We have a few deputies out looking for her. Also, Kate is registered as a latent Guide, but given what I have got from a few of the teachers at the school that we talked to about her, I would say that she's not latent but dormant. In fact, what I have found has them all dormant except for the son that wants nothing to do with the family anymore."

"Christopher. He left when his father tried to marry him off to a woman that he didn't like. Left Beacon Hills and never returned. Last I heard he was in San Francisco."

"Well, things are going to be worrisome for a while. Derek, what do you feel when you are around her?"

Peter listened as Derek talked about her feeling weird but that she had explained it was because she was latent and would come online when he did. Peter wanted to scream. Hell, he wanted to kill. He was just thankful that Derek hadn't let anything get further than a few kisses before her feel had become too much for him.

* * *

# 2016

Stiles Stilinski opened his eyes and groaned before he closed them again. Things were still weird, and he had no clue what was going on. He could smell shit that he shouldn't be able to smell. He could feel things on his skin that he shouldn't as well. That grain of sand was too much, and it was something that he never should have been able to feel. He knew then that he had come online. He could feel the thump of his heart and could smell his teammates. He groaned and tried to move, but they had him tied pretty well to whatever he was tied to. He was on his knees, and his hands were behind his back. His ankles were tied to something else. He was pretty much stuck on his knees. He had training, some on how to control his senses. Everyone who was latent went through it when they joined the military. Just in case they came online while in combat. Stiles was pretty sure it was so that the new awakened would go feral, but he wasn't fully sure about that.

The sound of a door opening had Stiles looking up. He saw one of his team members outside of the door. He was on his knees and looked beat to hell. Stiles tried to call out to him, but it was like he was stuck in molasses. The gunfire from somewhere had Stiles jerking. He listened as seven shots went off. The final was just after the door to his room shut again. An eighth shot went off, and Stiles heard the body hit the ground. He jerked on his bindings, and they snapped like he was breaking a wet noodle. He dropped forward with the angle was at and kicked, breaking the rope at his ankles as well. He lunged for the door as soon as he was clear of everything. No one on the other side was ready for him.

* * *

Sound was the first thing to come back to him, and he wondered where he was. He didn't move, though. He heard the sounds of voices in the area outside of the room that he was in. He heard a smattering of voices everywhere really, and none of them were easy to pick out. Stiles imagined his senses on a dial and slowly lowered hearing down. He had gone through a lot of training in the military, but that had been something that his father had taught him. He had years of living and working without a Guide and had become the Sheriff despite lacking in that way. Stiles took a deep breath and tried to catalog what he was smelling. He found that medicine scent that he knew from going with Scott to give his mom food when she worked late. He was in a hospital.

Stiles opened his eyes to see he wasn't chained to the bed, so he wasn't in enemy hands anymore. He saw that he wasn't even hooked up to a monitor at all. There were no machines in the room other than the one IV that was giving him fluids. He looked to see that it was pretty much empty, so he pulled the needle from the back of his hand. Using the sheet on his body to staunch the blood flow. The scent of his own blood was too much, so he tried to dial that down, but he was having issues with that. There was too much scent around him that he needed, and his mind wasn't letting him do it. He wasn't fully sure he wasn't in enemy hands. Stiles sat up and carefully looked around. The room was pretty standard for most hospitals that he had been in. Less comforting than his mother's room had been but then end of life rooms were always a bit more comforting since it was where someone was spending the last of their days.

Checking over his body, Stiles saw a few cuts that were healing and had liquid stitching on them. He grinned at that. It had been what was used on him since he tended to pick at actual stitches. It helped him calm down some but not nearly enough. He could still be in enemy hands. Stiles walked to the window, uncaring about the gown showing off his ass. He was used to be pretty much naked. He rubbed at his cheeks—the laser treatment to remove hair before boot camp had been thorough. Stiles was glad of it. He hated shaving, and even at eighteen, he had not been able to grow a good beard. He felt clean, which was a good thing.

The city line was one that Stiles didn't know, but he knew enough about languages and certain building aesthetics that he knew he was in Eastern Europe. He just wasn't sure which one. Stiles turned around and saw that his cell phone was lying on a chair. It had been in his kit back at base. There was also a pile of his clothes there. Smelling of nothing. So they knew he was online. He grabbed the phone and pressed a button. It lit up, and he saw that it was on, and he brought up his Dad's contact info and called.

"Stiles!" Noah's tone told Stiles everything that he needed to know. "They said you wouldn't wake up for another few hours."

"Yes, well, they misjudged and left my cell phone in my room with me. So Daddio...what did they tell you."

"Just that they found you passed out and kept you under for transport from where you were to Greece."

"Ah, I knew it was Eastern Europe. So at least I am safe if people got in contact with you and brought my phone from where it was in my kit back at base. So the details are kind of fuzzy, but obviously, I can't talk about them. I just wanted to hear your voice." Stiles could also hear his father's heartbeat and the sounds of the station. It was something that had helped settle him as a kid. He remembered falling asleep there a lot after his mother had died. The sounds had become normal to him.

"Ah, hell, kid. Are you okay?"

"I don't know, Daddy. I don't know. I'll call when I can and tell you what I can. Should probably find a doctor. They don't have me hooked up to a monitor, so I figure they don't know I'm awake."

"Be safe, son, and call when you can. I love you."

"Love you, too, Pops." Stiles hung up, feeling better after hearing his father. He didn't tell his father that he was online, and he wasn't sure if anyone had told him. He kind of didn't want that to happen with him pretty much naked and unsure of everything that was going on. Stiles dropped down into the chair after moving his clothes. He closed his eyes and listened to what was going on around him again, slowly zeroing in on the people at the front desk. He was sure he was at a base or something, so he wasn't shocked to hear American accents. He smiled and stood up again, grabbing his boxers from the pile and putting them on before he stepped to the door. He opened it slowly and looked out. The nurses' station was right in front of him. A few heads looked up and down, and then two shot up again.

"Specialist Stilinski, you should not be out of bed," the first man said to him as he stood up. He nodded at the nurse beside him, and Stiles saw her pick up a phone and dial something. Probably paging whoever was overseeing Stiles.

"Well, I was alone in a room and woke up that way. No one came and checked on me, so I just came out here."

"You should have pressed the alert."

"Yup, the button thing is on the wall still attached. I would have had to have got up to grab it and then got back into bed. This was just as easy."

"He never does what you want him to unless it's life or death."

"Captain," Stiles said before he stood at attention and saluted.

"At ease." Captain Rollins stepped closer and looked Stiles up and down. "You look okay."

"Feeling okay, Sir. I've got a few senses dialed down at the moment. I'm sure that when I start to play with them, it won't go as well."

"Let's go into your room, and you can get some clothes on."

"I put underwear on already, Sir. I remember you telling me that you were tired of seeing my pale ass."

Rollins laughed and waved for him to go in. Stiles turned and pulled his gown on and walked over to put on his pants. There was still really no smell on them, and he didn't like it. He would like it better when they smelled of him. He left his shirt off for the time. He figured that his heart was going to be checked over, but at least pants were going to be an issue. He went ahead and put pants on as well.

"What happened, Sir. The last thing that I remember was my team being killed."

"The men who had you didn't know you were latent or that you were online after being ambushed. You woke up and went feral from what we know from the few men that you left broken but alive."

"How many dead?" Stiles asked. He tried to remember what he had done, but it was kind of gone. He knew that it was the Sentinel part of himself protecting him. There were no tears lost over men who did what they had done. Not only to Stiles and his team, but to the villages they had raided. It was something horrible and nothing that he was going to feel bad about, even without his Sentinel self not letting him feel bad.

"You left seven alive and in horrible condition and one alive that you didn't even touch other than locking in a room. I don't know what the man said to you, but he promised that he had not taken part in anything and had been conscripted into everything recently. He was a fountain of information on a few other outposts. We have teams heading to take care of it."

"Why am I in Greece?" Stiles asked.

"Closest hospital that we could get a space for you at that could contain a feral Sentinel if you woke up again and was still a little out of it. You seem to be fine."

"I grew up around a Sentinel, Sir. My father is one. He never found a Guide who worked for him, so we learned to work around his senses. He had a few Guides that worked for the station that he used when he needed it. They were very good to him. I learned a few things from him, paid a lot of attention, and read all of the materials that he had been given. Especially after I was found to be latent when I was tested at age ten. So yeah, I learned how to control myself if I ever came online."

"You marked in the signing paperwork that you were not sure what you wanted to do if you ever came online. I know that you never saw yourself staying in the military, just getting in and spending a few years like your father."

"Yeah, I...don't feel the need to want to stay in the military right now. I feel like I wanna go home."

"And that's why we have that clause in the paperwork. So you think that Beacon Hills is your territory?"

"Yeah. That." Stiles rubbed at his eyes, there was a scent coming into his room that he didn't like. He growled a little and stood up. Heading out of the room. He heard Rollins calling out to him, but he didn't care. He just kept on going. Rollins was behind him but didn't try and stop him. He kept on going until he found the scent. He grabbed the hand of the nurse who was injecting something into an IV. He reached out had put a kink in the line running out of the bag.

"Stilinski!" Rollins said.

"Sir, find a doctor now."

"Shit."

Rollins left the room and came back with a doctor.

"Sir, this man just assaulted me," the woman said.

"He grabbed your hand, and you aren't even red where he did it. Now, what are you doing?"

"Giving this Guide the medication that she is supposed to get at this point in time, Doctor."

"It smells..."

"We were a floor up, doctor. Whatever the scent is, Sentinel Stilinski didn't like it."

"Sentinel, I'm going to come over and pull the needle from her skin, and you are going to let go then."

"Sure." Stiles felt his skin crawling at the thought of what this Guide was being given. He wasn't sure what was going on with all of it.

"Get a testing kit," the doctor said to someone else.

"Testing kit?" Rollins asked.

"There are a few medications that we cannot give Guides for various reasons. We have a kit made that tests them all very quickly.

The other nurse came back with the kit, and there was a single vial inside and a chart. The doctor took the needle he had just taken from the Guide's hand and stuck it into the vial, and then Stiles released.

The liquid in the vial turned black.

"Captain Rollins, until someone else gets here, I would like you and Sentinel Stilinski to keep her under guard. Do not let her call anyone or talk to anyone."

"Sure," Rollins said.

"What's black mean?"

"That they were trying to kill the Guide. She's been here for a few weeks after a traumatic coming online put her into a coma to protect her mind. We are doing a search for her Sentinel. None have triggered her to wake up. I'll have them all come back. She was being kept under longer due to this drug."

"Stilinski, can you go anywhere without causing some kind of incident?"

"Just ask my father, Sir. No."

The doctor laughed, and the nurse that Stiles was turning around to use the cuffs that were being handed to him by a nurse laughed as well.

Stiles wanted to laugh, but he couldn't. His father wasn't going to be shocked at this. It was just like when he had followed Cora home after school, and she had been acting weird. She had come online and had been trying to hide it. Stiles was just attracted to things that were not right. Stiles had been friends with her before that, and no one had been shocked when she had ended up following Stiles' father into law enforcement, given how close they all were with Noah being the one to help train her as a Sentinel.

There were a lot of reasons to want to go home, but seeing Cora again was the biggest. He had missed her.

* * *

Peter woke up, drenched in sweat as he had been since May. It was not every single night but enough that Peter had been worried about it. His Guide abilities were locked down and had stayed in the local branch of the training center for a few days until he woke up like that again. He had found that it was nothing that they could find. The only help that they could give him was that they thought that maybe he was connected to his Sentinel and that it was him who was having the issue, and his mind was helping his Sentinel by pulling that into him. Peter never remembered what he dreamed about, and he slept like the dead through it all. Peter wanted it to stop, mainly so that he wasn't washing his bedclothes at least once a week. He had gone out and bought more sheets so that he could at least go four times before having to wash one to use again.

The clock on the nightstand told Peter that it was just a few minutes until his alarm was going to go off, so he rolled over and shut it off before getting out of bed. He snagged his phone and held it until the alarm on it went off. He got into the shower and got ready for the day. Thankfully the coffee pot was finished by the time that he made it down to the kitchen. He popped the capsule out of the machine and tossed it before placing another in there for the next morning. He only drank a single cup of coffee before swapping to tea for the day. He pulled his breakfast out of the fridge and popped it into the oven to reheat. The menu for the day was on the kitchen table where he had left it the night before. He settled there to look over it while his breakfast reheated. He had a routine, and he liked it. He just wasn't sure what he was going to do with this Sentinel that was hovering at the edges of his mind when he slept.

Peter ate quickly before brushing his teeth while his kettle boiled, and he made a large carafe of tea to take with him to work. He inhaled deeply the smell of the bergamot that was in the tea and grinned. It was enough to help settle him down the rest of the way.

"Boyd," Peter said when he saw the younger man standing by his car when he got outside.

"Morning, Boss."

"Boyd, issues?" Peter asked. He walked to the trunk of the car and slipped in the carafe of tea to take with him. It would be enough to get him through the morning until more staff came that would get working on keeping him in tea, steadily lowering the caffeine content until by the time that dinner rush hit, he was drinking herbal.

"Car broke down, and I need to run and pick up the stuff at the market a town over. I figured I would just ride in with you and then leave with the car."

"Sure. You got it in the shop?" Peter asked. He walked around to the passenger side and tossed Boyd the keys. He might as well get a chauffeur for the morning out of it.

"Yes. Tow picked it up last night. You were already in bed, and the Sheriff gave me a ride after hearing the two get called out over the radio."

"Noah's good at that kind of stuff. I think it's half why he and the guys listen to the tow company in the area." Peter had been picked up more than once by a Deputy or the Sheriff himself when he had called for a tow. The Deputies that were spread out around the county protecting it were all good guys. The Sheriff didn't stand for anyone to be abusive. Of course, the Sentinels were vetted in very different ways, but the mundanes who worked were all good as well. Peter knew that the man ran a clean ship and protected everyone as much as he could. There was a reason that he was the head of the area, despite the fact that he didn't have a Guide. Peter enjoyed the man's company when he came in to eat lunch or dinner. Sometimes breakfast if he was getting off of a long shift and didn't want to deal with people. Peter cooked him breakfast even though the restaurant wasn't open.

"Sheriff said something last night about stopping by for breakfast. I told him to just come in the back today."

Peter nodded his head and took a sip of his almost still too hot to drink tea. He blew into the hole and then took another sip.

"He said that Stiles is coming back," Boyd said next.

Peter nodded again and then stopped. Who the hell was Stiles? Or what the hell was it? "What the hell is a Stiles?"

"His son."

Peter stopped at that and looked at Boyd. The name wasn’t familiar. He remembered the boy in the station while they dealt with Kate Argent and her inappropriate relationship with Derek. There had been DNA evidence of her on the property in the treehouse, so it hadn't been hard to get that pinned on her. The fact that she had condoms and a bunch of other stuff in her apartment that was geared toward teenage boys and the only under eighteen-year-old in her life was her ten-year-old niece had not helped. That she had obtained false records to teach and used an assumed name that she had not changed legally had a whole big hunt going on. The FBI had ended up looking into things, and it seemed that her father had a slew of people that he hated, and he used Kate to ruin them. The implications of what she had done had been enough to get her thrown into jail for a very long time, and Peter was glad of it.

"I guess I still think of him as Mischief," Peter said.

"Yeah, he's that all right."

"Oh, that's right, you and he were close in age in school."

"Yes, a year above me. He was in Cora's grade, and they made friends with me, Isaac, and Erica."

Peter nodded his head. All three of them worked at his restaurant. Erica's seizures were mostly under control, but Peter had found a good job for her that she liked to do and wasn't boring as well. Isaac was a wonderful dessert maker, and his attention to detail made him well sought after, but he wouldn't ever leave the restaurant where Boyd and Erica were.

"And how is Isaac's wooing of the youngest Argent going?"

Boyd laughed, but it was a good-natured one, so Peter figured that it was going well. Chris and his daughter Allison had moved into town to set up Argent Arms International there as a help to the community after what his father did. It was a boon to the community, and while many had not been happy about it, he had grown on the town. Especially after Noah had started to spend time with him and talk about the free weapons training that he gave to the Sheriff's station and the Beacon Hills PD. Peter had been more than pleased with the man's addition to the town. It had brought in a lot of jobs as warehouse workers and other things. Allison was following her father's path and was in college for business so that she could help him run it when she graduated. Boyd, Erica, and Isaac were all in college at the time, but as it was summer and none of them were taking classes, they were working more than they normally did.

"So, are we all set up for today?" Peter asked.

"Yes. Jeremy sent me pictures, and the closing shift has finally learned how to do shit. I'll be happy when Jean is back next week. I hate night shift, but I'm about to just say I'll take it."

"Jeremy needs to learn if he wants to step up as he talks about." Peter knew that the young man wasn't used to have responsibilities, but he needed to learn.

The restaurant came into view, and Peter looked at the front of Carinae and grinned. He had named it after the star that was also called Canopus. It was a good restaurant that, while a little on the pricey side, the food was well worth it to the locals. Peter never had a service where he didn't have a full restaurant. He was happy with that.

"See you in a little while, Boss," Boyd said after Peter got out and grabbed his things from the trunk.

Peter gave him a mock salute and headed around the back. Noah was sitting in his car in the back parking lot, looking like he was a step away from falling asleep.

"Good morning, Sheriff," Peter said.

Noah nodded his head before opening up his eyes. He looked a little better with his eyes open. He wasn't nearly as worn out looking. His eyes actually looked normal.

"I need the biggest pile of bacon in the world," Noah said.

"Issues last night?" Peter unlocked the restaurant's back door and turned off the alarm before waiting for Noah to slip up with him. He pushed the door inside of the junk room. The door opened up into the open and held it there for Peter to slip through with his tea. The room wasn't as full of junk as it was just as things that were not able to be stored anywhere else, like extra sidewalk signs for the specials. The themed ones, as well as the gear used to take care of the plants that hung around the front of the restaurant and the rarely used salt just in case winter, was bad enough that the sidewalk got slick. Peter called it a junk room because that's what it was, but it was at least clean.

"Not so much issues, as Stiles is freaking out a little bit about coming home."

"Why? He never has before. How long is he in town for?" Peter laid his things on the table just inside the door so that he could switch on all of the lights in the back part of the restaurant. He laid his papers down and spread them out so he could look at them and put them into some kind of order for what he needed to get started on. Noah wanted bacon so he could fry up all that was needed for the dishes for lunch at the same time. He needed a good bit for the bacon mac and cheese that he was doing as the main special. There wasn't a lot of other stuff that needed to be really done after that, so he just focused on cooking Noah something to eat and something for himself for a mid-morning snack.

"Oh, you've not...I guess you and I haven't talked as much."

"I know that he was taken captive, and they called you after he had been found."

"Yeah. He came online in the middle of being tortured, and he took the out clause. He wanted to come home. He's going to get a degree at Beacon University and then join the department. I've barely got to talk to him. The Army is training him up on his senses before letting him loose into the world. That's why he wasn't discharged back in May when it happened. He's good and level now, but he had a few issues with his Spirit Animal."

"Really? Isn't that strange?"

"Eh, it's Stiles. His Spirit Animal has as much attitude as he does. I guess it wanted to stay out all of the time or something. Stiles was pretty vague about it all."

"What is his Spirit Animal?" Peter felt a brush against his leg and looked down at Gurney. The European Hare was always around when Peter was cooking in the kitchen alone. It was something that he had learned to adapt to a long time ago. It was kind of cute, but he made it known that he didn't like others getting anywhere close to him. There were only a few times that Gurney had attacked anyone, and they learned that he wasn't just a fluffy bunny. There was a reason he was named Gurney.

"A fox? Stiles called him Demon Fox for a while, and I am still not sure what he means by that. He refuses to take pictures. He'll have to for his record here at the department when he starts to work. He had been taking online classes already. It seemed to keep him from going nuts while on deployments and stuff. He was given the assignments upfront and would listen to the lectures when he had a chance. He's only got two years left at college before he graduates if he doesn't make it shorter than that."

"So, his ADHD didn't go away?" Peter asked. He remembered how much trouble Stiles had gotten into at school when he was younger. He had been diagnosed with ADHD until it was figured out that he was borderline online and had been since a man had broken in the house when he had been a young boy and tried to attack him and his mother. He still kept the ADHD diagnosis, but he wasn't really treated for it anymore since nothing really worked, but treating him like other ADHD students had helped him get focus and learn how to deal with his attention span and his moments of hyperness.

"Not until he came online, but even now he's so used to it that he's afraid with not a lot to help him focus, he's going to go crazy. So he's working through the classes that he wants to sign up for, and there are a few that he can just test out of given his training in the Army. He's been talking to his advisor for over a month."

"When does he arrive back home?" Peter knew that Boyd said he was coming back but not when.

"Today. I was going to bring him by for lunch. It's why I worked last night, so I could sleep this morning and then take him out as soon as he gets home. A buddy of his is picking him up in San Francisco and dropping him off here. Well, at home."

Peter nodded his head.

"What does he think of bacon in his mac and cheese?" Peter asked.

"As long as there are vegetables in there, he would love it. Especially if you made curly fries."

Peter hummed and thought about changing up the side dishes for the day. Stiles deserved a nice welcome home, if for nothing more than who his father was.

* * *

Stiles looked around the area of town that he had his friend drop him off at. He knew that his father wasn't working, was at home sleeping, but he had gotten a slightly earlier flight from New York to San Francisco, so he had been just taking his time, and he and Jeff had eaten before heading down to Beacon Hills. Stiles figured that no one was going to recognize him with his longer hair. He hadn't been held to the standards of those on active duty for the last little while, so Stiles hadn't cut his hair after waking up. He kind of liked the length of it. It was longer than any cut he had for a long while. The assignment he had been on had allowed for longer hair to help him fit into where they were working, but then he had been in the hands of terrorists for six weeks, and he hadn't been given a cut in that time either. He was thinking of getting an undercut and leaving the top to where he could pull it into a top knot of sorts. He kind of liked the idea but wasn't sure yet. The length wasn't bothering his sense of touch on his neck, so he was leaving it for now.

A yip had Stiles looking at Thufir, and the fox was trotting ahead of him on the street. Stiles was pretty sure that he was the only one who could see him at the moment. After finally getting control of himself and that he wasn't under threat, Thufir had allowed himself to leave their plane of existence instead of being there all the time. Still, he didn't quite hide as much as Stiles was sure he should have. Stiles was in control, though, or he never would have been released by the military. The American Armed Forces made sure that the Sentinels that resigned from them were good to go before being allowed to become a civilian. Stiles was glad of it even it had meant that it was July before he had been able to come home.

"Hey, hot stuff, how much?" a voice asked.

Stiles stopped and turned to look at the Deputy in the cruiser that had pulled up beside him. He glared at her for a few seconds as she just stared at him. Then she jumped when Thufir jumped up on the hood of the car. He laughed as her partner started to laugh his ass off as well.

"That's what you get. A face full of growling fox. He's beautiful, Stiles," Derek said as he slapped his sister on the shoulder.

Cora only responded by flipping off Thufir, which had him preening.

"Cora, meet Thufir."

"Thumper?" Cora asked.

"I swear you are not smart enough to be called a Hale sometimes," Derek said.

"Der," Cora threatened.

"Thufir. It's a character from the Dune book series. You know Stiles' favorite books."

"Oh, right, the one guy." Cora turned to look at Stiles as Thufir jumped off the hood of the car and disappeared even from Stiles' sight. "Want a ride?"

"Nah, I wanna see the town a little before I head home to grab dad for lunch. He's taking me to Carinae. I've never made it in there to eat before now. He texted me that I was going to love the lunch that he had picked out for me. I'm a little scared that he's going to get me back for all the years I made him eat healthily so I could keep him around when I was a teenager."

"Nah, it's Mac and cheese day there. It's gonna be busy, so make sure you keep your levels down. Where is the rest of your stuff?" Cora eyed the bag that Stiles had slung over his shoulder.

"Shipping from my last place overseas. I stayed over there for my training as when they tried to fly me out the first time after I came out of my feral drive, I couldn't do it. So they dropped me in a base there and shipped my stuff to me. It'll be here in a week. I'm used to living out of this, though, so it's not like I'm gonna go without too much."

"Why don't we drop that off at the house? You might attract a little less attention without it on you," Derek offered.

"Sure." Stiles walked over to the cruiser and opened the back door and dropped his bag inside. He dug out his wallet and keys before slipping them into his jeans. "So the best tea in town?"

"Ugh, can't get it right now as it's closed for a renovation but stop by Carinae. They opened a little while ago, and it's on your way home. They do mocktails this early in the day, and they have a good coffee machine. Have them make you a London Fog. I think you'll like it," Cora said.

"Sure thing." Stiles tapped on the top of the cruiser, and the two Hales pulled away.

The mental map of Beacon Hills told Stiles exactly how he had to move through the town to hit Carinae. He had seen it a lot of times when he was wandering through town, but it had always been busy as hell, and when he was back on leave, he hated being bothered, so he and his father had never eaten there. He looked at the time to see that it was just past ten. That was early for a place like that to open, but he trusted Cora that she wasn't fucking with him.

Beacon Hills wasn't nearly as dead as it would have been a few hours before. The businesses that opened at eight or nine were busy with their customers. The town was full of life, and he loved it. This was his home, and he was glad to be back. That piece of himself that had been itching to get back was finally silent. He inhaled and exhaled, taking in the new scents he had never smelled before. The scent of the Preserve was in his nose, and he itched to walk it. He pushed that away, though. That would come later. Probably tomorrow. He could wake up and head that way for his morning run. He could probably spend the whole day in the Preserve. He needed to ask if that was okay with the Hales. He knew that Cora and Derek wouldn't mind, but Talia or Peter might. He would have his father call.

Carinae had a few people standing outside of it talking. They had cups in their hands that had the stylized Triskelion on them that Stiles knew was the family symbol for the Hales. After college, Peter coming back to Beacon Hills and getting his law degree, and opening up a restaurant had been a bit of gossip for the longest time. Peter had taken two years to get everything correct before he opened its doors. Stiles had been brought back food from there, but he had never eaten inside of it.

One of the people at the doors smiled at Stiles and opened up the door and ushered him inside.

"Stiles, I didn't know you were back in town," Erica Reyes said from where she was standing behind the bar at the back of the room. Stiles looked around and took in everything before she smiled at her.

"Just got back in. So I was told that I needed to have a London Fog. How exactly do you guys make it?" Stiles walked up to the bar and settled on a stool.

"Just steamed milk and tea. Vanilla on request. I brew the tea up fresh every morning and add it, and it's steamed with the milk. We use specific pots for it so that the tea doesn't color the milk's taste for Sentinels when we steam milk for standard lattes."

"So why does a restaurant serve as a coffee shop?" Stiles asked.

"Well, I like bar-tending, and we make everything from scratch. We do a few mocktails this early for those who want something that's not coffee or tea for their mornings. So while I'm making up everything for lunch and dinner in the restaurant to be used, we decided to open up for coffee and tea. The best shop in town is on the other side, so it wasn't like we were taking business from them and the places around here are happy. We don't have too many rushes so I can still get my work done and out of here while also serving coffee and tea."

"That sounds like a good job for you."

"Yeah. I also make a few sauces and syrups up for desserts at the same time, so it helps Isaac."

"Ah, so all three of you work here?"

"Yup. Boyd's one of the Sous Chefs, and Isaac does all of the desserts."

"I'm glad you guys are all being taken care of." Stiles took a deep breath now that he was used to the scents of the place, and he smelled his father and another scent that he really liked. "Does my dad eat here a lot?"

"I'm not sure that I want to answer that." Erica was grinning as she poured milk and very dark looking tea from a pitcher.

"I can smell him, so I know he comes here."

"Smell him...holy shit."

"Yeah." Stiles nodded his head.

"Well then to answer that question, yes he does but usually only for breakfast. He comes in when Peter is prepping food for the lunch service, and he has Peter make him breakfast before he heads home."

Stiles nodded his head in response and listened to the prep that was happening in the kitchen. He could smell the food as it was being cooked. It smelled great. He looked at the menu that was on the bar.

"Dad's bringing me here for lunch in a little while."

"I'm glad. He said he's tried to get you in here for a while. It's gonna be a good set of food. I heard him talking before he ran to the store to get a few things that he was going to do a special side."

"Yeah, I see that on the list here. It actually says surprise, which I'm kind of shocked about. He always seemed so anal-retentive."

"He can, but he said he had a conversation with someone, and it inspired him. He had good ideas, but I'm glad that he has Boyd and a few others to turn them into meals that work."

Stiles laughed and eyed the drink that Erica set down in front of him. He picked it up and found that it was a lower temp than drinks were after being steamed.

"Kids temp. We have more than a few Sentinels that get them. If they are taking them somewhere like to the station, then I do normally. For drinking right now, I do kid temp."

"Thanks." Stiles pulled out his wallet, and he saw the look that she gave him, so he pulled a ten out and dropped it into the tip jar. Erica grinned at him. "I'll see you for lunch?"

"Yeah, I'll be tending the bar, and then we do drinks again in the afternoon after we shut down from lunch rush. Until four and then, it's prepping fully for dinner service." Erica leaned over the bar and pressed a kiss to his cheek. She rubbed at the lipstick that she left and grinned before waving him away.

Stiles shook his head as he gave her a little wave and then turned to leave. The crowd that had been outside was gone, and Stiles was glad of it. He slipped out the door and looked at the businesses that were around. It looked like Beacon Hills was still going through the surge of new businesses, and he was pleased. Beacon University moving from the other side of the county to here after a huge fault line opened up and made the ground unstable had brought a lot of new things here. The housing market had boomed, and now with students and teachers, it was a good place to live again. With the college came things that Beacon Hills had never had before that catered to students, so Stiles was glad of that.

The walkthrough town took a little time, but he was fine with that. The London Fog was kind of perfect. Erica did well as making up the tea. The lavender in it didn't overpower the bergamot or the black tea, but kind of sat there and helped boost them up. Stiles still loved the smell of coffee, but it was a taste that he couldn't do unless there was a lot of cream and sugar, and then there was no coffee taste anymore, so he just stopped drinking it.

Tea had been Stiles' saving grace. He found that he could drink almost every single variety that he had come across, save for one. Any tea that had lapsang souchong. The smoke that was dried into the tea was too much. He was okay with that, though, as he didn't figure that he would like every single one. That tea though, reminded Stiles of war a little too much and coming on villages burned.

Woodbine Lane was just as sleepy as it always seemed when Stiles turned onto it. A few people through town had waved at him, but Stiles knew that they thought they should know him. However, they hadn't been able to place him. When Stiles was a block down the road, he heard barking and knew that his favorite resident of Woodbine Lane recognized him.

"Hello, Turtle," Stiles said as he crouched down to greet the dog. She had been just two when Stiles had left four years ago. Her coloring reminded Stiles of a turtle candy with the swirls of three different shades of brown, and her owner had heard him call her a turtle, and it had stuck.

"Stiles!" Margie yelled before she came running at him.

Stiles let her pull him into a hug.

"How long are you home for?"

"Home to stay."

"Oh, no. Did you get medically discharged?" Margie looked up him up and down.

"No, nothing like that. I took the Sentinel out clause. I came online during combat." Stiles had practiced that as he didn't want to go into the longer details of why he had come online. It wasn't for anyone to know except those that did.

"Gonna join your Dad?" Margie was smiling again.

"Yes, Ma'am."

Margie laughed and shoved at him before waving him on. "Come and pick up Turtle for a run or two in the Preserve. Your father takes her out sometimes. She'll enjoy going with you again."

"I will. Maybe even tomorrow. Need me to holler in?"

"No. Just take her and go."

Stiles nodded and headed home. He was happy to be back.

* * *

Peter groaned as he looked at the text message on his phone. It was one of the other chefs. He rubbed at his nose before slipping his phone into his pocket and grabbing his apron from the back of the door. Boyd looked at him as he slipped out and shook his head. Peter shrugged. There wasn't much that could be done. They were going to need help. Mac and cheese day was one of the busiest lunches that they had.

"Bossman, you have plans for lunch," Erica said. She pouted at him.

"Well, it's that or leave Boyd with no one to run the vegetarian station," Peter said.

"Oh, damn. Really?" Boyd asked.

"Yup. I can head it up, and maybe I'll be able to slip out and say hello to Noah and Stiles."

"I'll let the Sheriff know when he gets here. That means you are running fries as well," Erica said.

"I'm well aware." Peter walked over to see how the station was set up. Boyd had done it, so Peter knew that it was going to be perfect. "Erica, get Stacy in here for dinner prep and dinner. I wanna see how she does. If she does well, she's taking Stewart's spot on lunch and prep."

"You got it. She will have to see about childcare, which is why I know you aren't getting her in here for lunch."

"Give her Miss Jean's number again. She'll adore little Jimmy's company."

Erica nodded and slipped out of the kitchen and into the front to head up to the bar to get things going on calling.

Peter focused on getting everything ready for him. He worked a little differently than Boyd, but it wasn't terribly different. He could do this. He looked at his helpers and found that they at least didn't look scared. "Which one of you is least scared of the deep fryer?"

The two guys looked at each other, and then the one furthest from Peter raised his arm.

"Okay, then you are in charge of curly fries. They are already prepped and ready to go. You've just gotta drop down the right amount. You know how?"

The guy nodded his head.

Peter wasn't sure that either of them was going to make it long term. Boyd did most of the hiring, and while Peter talked to them and sat in, Boyd was the one who ran the kitchen, and that meant he knew better what was needed. Just as the one who didn't raise his hand turned, Peter saw the scarring on his arms before he pulled down the sleeve of his jacket. It was burn scars of some kind. At least that gave him a reason to not want to work the deep fryer.

There were three areas in the kitchen, one for meats and gluten, one that was for vegetarian things, which could also include gluten, and then the section for everything gluten-free. It was run by a sous chef that Peter had hired when it was figured out that there was a small grouping of people in the town that had severe sensitivities to it and then a few more found that while gluten didn't give the gut issues, it helped cut it out in other ways. Enough of them were regulars that Peter made sure that they had an area in the kitchen that was set up just for them.

Boyd called out orders and the machines at each station printed, and then it was just in the zone of cooking.

Peter loved cooking for himself, and while he did well at this, he didn't like doing it every single day. He liked helping when needed, though.

Erica popped in a while later, and Peter saw her look at him and then slip back out again. He assumed that Noah and Stiles were there. Peter was looking forward to meeting him. He was sure that he had met him before, but the Hale children had a menagerie of friends and many of them he never tried to remember. Peter had tried when they had been in grade school, but it had become too much when every day, at least ten kids were running around for each of the kids. So Peter had just smushed them all into one person and was content with that.

Peter didn't come out of it all until the last ticket was sent, and he was able to lean back and focus on the fact that even the vegetarian station had been packed.

"Is it always like that, Boyd?" Peter asked.

"For your station? Yes. We have more than a few who will get the veggie mac and cheese even if they are meat-eaters. It gave us a break a little. I'm just glad we only do this for lunch."

Peter nodded his head and pulled the apron off of his person. He looked at his clothes to see that other than sweat, he wasn't stained anywhere, which was a good thing. He knew that there were still people eating. While lunch service stopped at one-thirty, that just meant that no one got in the doors after that point. They would cook until everyone was gone. Lunch desserts were grab and serve, so that lessened the strain on the kitchen. It seemed that no one came in a rush at the closing time, though, so that was good.

Erica came back into the kitchen with a tray of smoothies and laid it down on the table just inside the door. Each straw had a name written on the bit of wrapper sticking up out of the glass. Peter found his and smiled as it was the peach and cucumber one that he really liked.

"They are still here. I told them to stay and talk," Erica said when Peter leaned against the table beside her.

"Really? Why did they stay?"

"Well, they were talking, and people kept stopping to talk to the Sheriff, you know as a lot do. Busybodies. A few thought that he was on a date. Which I found funny as hell. Stiles actually laughed at that. He's also racked up over twenty in iced London Fogs. He got a hot one earlier but wanted something cooler to drink with lunch. The Sheriff is just drinking iced tea like it's going out of business."

"He always drinks a lot with mac and cheese. I think I clocked seven glasses one time. Comp their drinks and don't let the Sheriff know until he's going to pay. He's gonna cover Stiles' so that will make it a little better."

"Yeah, Sheriff already told the waitress that he's to get the check and not Stiles. Stiles might be ex-Army and a Sentinel, but his father is scary. I kind of forget that he's a Sentinel as well. He's just so laid back."

"It's part of why he doesn't need a Guide. I think that Claudia worked as his Guide in all the ways that matter now the memory of her does. I'll go and clean up my arms and change my shirt before I head out. I don't want to overwhelm Stiles with the scent of me if it would bother him."

"Don't worry about that. He sneezed and glared at Miss Melinda when she got close, but he just shut off his nose." Erica grinned as she said that.

"I still don't to overwhelm him," Peter said.

Erica shrugged, and she was still grinning. Peter could almost think that she knew more than she was letting on, but then Peter knew that Stiles and her were friendly. She had heard the talk of him enough while they had been getting things ready for the shift today. His three minions were all happy to have Stiles home. Peter wasn't sure what that was about, but it wasn't his place to ask about it. He shook his head and took another drink of his smoothie before heading out to see Noah and Stiles. He looked around and found them tucked into the far corner that had nothing else around it. The bathroom and kitchen entrances were on this side of the bar, and that side was just walls. It was a good place to stick them. Stiles had his back to the corner, and Noah was beside him with his back to the bar and a wall. Both of them could see people coming up to them.

There was a buzz at the back of his mind, and Peter stopped. He usually kept a very tight lid on his Guide abilities when he was working. When he was home, he let them slip out and take over the whole area. There were too many people in the city for him to ever think that he could function with feeling even a few of their emotions. It was the only thing that made Peter want a Sentinel, to be able to focus wholly on them and let his mind and abilities do what they wanted.

Letting himself go a little, Peter felt the brush of a few other minds in the area and a few new ones as well. Gurney appeared on the bar, one of his hind legs slapping at his ear as he scratched it. He was looking around a little when he was done and then took off down the bar. He was shocked when Noah's head followed him. Gurney was visible. The hare never really let himself out to where others could see him. He was a shy little fucker so very much in contrast to how Peter was.

Gurney landed on the table that Noah and Stiles were sitting at, and his head was turned toward Stiles. Peter cocked his head to the side. Stiles was kind of looking at Gurney, but he hadn't been all that focused on Gurney before that second. In fact, his head hadn't moved. Peter rushed over as soon as it clicked in his mind. He crouched at Stiles' side and laid on hand on the back of his chair and the other on the table just inches from Stiles' hand.

"What are you doing?" Noah asked. He stood up like he was going to shove Peter away.

"He's zoned out, Noah."

"No, he was just talking about a scent. Then your damned rabbit jumped on the table."

Peter ignored the jab at Gurney. Noah knew well that Gurney was a hare and not a rabbit. It was a jab at Peter while he was freaked out a little.

"What was the scent?"

"He didn't say just that he liked it."

Peter lifted his hand up and pushed his sleeve up before holding it closer to Stiles' nose. He didn't have them touch even though he wanted to. He jerked it away when Stiles inhaled deeply, and his eyes went from barely focused to narrowing in on Gurney on the table. He ignored the wrist in front of him and laughed a little.

"A European Hare, that's rare for this area," Stiles said.

"Yes, he is. He's a proud little fucker too," Peter said.

Stiles finally turned his eyes to look at Peter, and those eyes felt like they drilled down all the way into Peter's soul.

"Mine's a pretty, pretty Princess, and he hates it when I tell him that. He once hid from me for a day when I did it. Which was kind of funny considering that he was there all the time before that."

Peter laughed. "Do I get to meet yours?"

"He's shy right now, it seems."

"Uh, no."

Peter looked at Noah. He was looking to the side, a shadowy part of the bar where with the bar lights off, it was half in shadow. Peter saw a pair of eyes looking at him from there, and then the thing in the shadows was moving. A very dark-colored fox was stalking toward him. Peter wasn't sure what he wanted to do, but he felt like he was being hunted and should be running away.

"He's very beautiful. Melanistic Fox, right?"

"Yes. My superiors were very surprised because there has not been a single one on record since we've been recording them. I just figured that he didn't want to be a plain fox since I'm not exactly a normal human. He wanted to be one of a kind just like I am."

Peter laughed and moved his hand closer. He made his intention to touch very noticeably. Stiles nodded his head even before Peter hesitated to wait for the answer. Peter cupped the side of Stiles' face, and he felt the slim connection start to build. It was the only thing that they were going to have until both of them pushed more of themselves into it.

"Well, I think you'll do," Peter said.

Stiles laughed, and he reached out, cupping the side of Peter's face in a mimic of what Peter was doing.

"Fucking hell," Noah said.

"Oh, it's adorable." Erica's voice was like a bell.

"I'm going to fire them all," Peter said.

Stiles' eyes crinkled in laughter, and he looked down. Peter followed his gaze, keeping his hand on Stiles' cheek. Gurney was trying to creep over. It looked like he was aiming to get into Stiles' lap. Before Peter could say a single thing, he had fur over his hands, and he looked done, nearly dislodging Stiles' hand. The fox was pretty much in his lap. He had to give him the props that he was a sneaky fox. Peter felt another layer of Stiles' mind settle on him with the contact. He looked up to see Gurney looking at the fox before he just jumped and landed in Stiles' lap.

"Okay. I'm out of here. Erica, it's your job to make sure they don't break the law."

"Eh, we've got an apartment up a floor. Not sure the town would like these two getting it on in an unshielded room, but it's that or public sex. Boyd has a spray bottle. It worked on the last couple that met here."

Peter growled at Erica, and all she did was give him an air kiss.

"Well, I'd prefer if they were in a place with shielding, but that's not my place. I need to sleep before I deal with this." The sound of the door shutting jerked Peter out of his own near zone out. Stiles didn't jerk his hand back, but he slowly pulled it back with a caress of fingers tips on skin. He laid his hands on the table and then moved them again to pet Gurney.

"Who is this?" Stiles asked.

"Ah, yes. That's my Gurney," Peter said.

"Oh, really? Like the medical bed?" Stiles had a quirk to his lips as he spoke, and the light in his eyes told Peter that he was being made fun of. Yet there was something there that told Peter that he knew exactly where the name came from. Which was a shock for someone Stiles' age.

"You impertinent little shit." Peter pulled his hand away from Stiles, but the connection to him didn't go away. It faded a little but was still pulsing strong at the edges of Peter's mind.

Stiles itched to touch again. He wanted so badly to touch, to touch this name everywhere. He was someone who was obviously well known to Erica and to his father, but he had no clue who he was. His Spirit Animal was well named in Stiles' opinion. This was his Guide, and he knew it. It seemed like he knew that they were connected as well. He could feel happiness through the hare that was in his lap. Stiles wasn't sure what was going on. He had heard others talking, but he was so focused on the man that all he heard was a buzz like the teacher in the Charlie Brown stuff.

"It's okay. My father calls me that a lot. I'm not shocked you would as well."

"What's your fox's name?" the man asked.

"Oh, well, my father likes to call him Master of Assassins. He jokingly asked him this morning if he was going to be head of security for the house. I flipped him off."

The man's laugh was soothing, and it settled Stiles a little more.

"Thufir, huh? That's an interesting choice for someone your age."

"My mom loved the books, but she never let me read them until I was older. She died before I could read them and talk to her about them. Dad bought me the entire original series when I turned thirteen. I tried to skip school so I could read them, but Dad just took them away. I didn't get them back until I was done with homework. Then he only gave me the one I was currently reading."

"So, you liked the dry politics at that age?"

"It's different, and I didn't understand everything at first, but I understood enough to enjoy it. Dad blames that on my love of watching pretty much anything, but I only go for hard science fiction and epic fantasy for reading. When I got sent out, Dad bought me a Kindle. Loaded it with all of the Dune books, including the newer ones. He'd send me new books on it all the time. If he saw anything that I might like in the store. I got really desperate and would read anything at the end of my last deployment. I didn't have schoolwork to keep me busy."

"Sounds like fun," the man said.

"What's your name?" Stiles asked. He realized that he didn't know enough about him to guess who he was. He obviously worked at the restaurant, but there were a lot of people who worked there. The man's eyebrow lifted, and there was a lilt to them that Stiles knew better than most people. He saw that a lot on Derek, but Cora did it a good deal as well. So a Hale. There was only a single Hale who worked here high enough to be talked to like Erica had been doing. "Peter."

"Got it in one, sweetheart. Yes, I'm Peter Hale. I won't embarrass you by saying your name, but your father did teach me how to say it. So let's get out of here. Did you ride with your father, or is your junker of a Jeep sitting in my parking lot?" Peter had a grin on his lips as he said it.

Stiles felt like he needed to get the man back for saying what he was about his Jeep. He shoved at Peter's shoulder and was barked at by Thufir for it. The fox shifted off of Peter's lap and walked a few steps before disappearing. Stiles looked down at Gurney, who was content in his lap. The hare looked like he was more than content to stay right where he was.

"My Jeep is at home. I drove Dad's SUV here. His work car is in the shop for standard maintenance, so he's been using someone else's. I guess there were a few issues, and after it's done, all the others are getting looked at for the same reason."

"Ah, yes. Noah was griping about that this morning at breakfast. So we will take my car out to my house in the Preserve."

"On the Hale part of the lands, yes?"

"Yes. It's closer to the city than the main house, on a street and everything." Peter stood up and held out his hand.

Stiles stood and hesitated only long enough to move Gurney to lay cuddled like a baby in one arm before he slipped his hand into Peter's. The bond that was in Stiles' mind was steady but now burned brighter for just a few seconds.

* * *

The house that was in front of him was beautiful. It was the only house on the street and was actually situated at the end of a cul-de-sac. There was a lot of land on either side of the house and up the street that was just well-maintained gardens.

Stiles inhaled the scent of the flowers and found that every single one of them was soft in scent but beautiful. There were many varieties of flowers that had been bred over the years to have little to no scent or such a soft scent that it didn't bother Sentinels. Peter's gardens were overflowing with them. It more than the house spoke of Peter's wealth.

Peter's finances were not a mystery to Stiles. He had heard his father talking about how he invested the money left over after he had gone to college and how he had dipped into it for his restaurant but was content to let the bulk of it just earn him more money. He could live; however, he wanted and not work another day, his father had said once. It hadn't been said as a slight toward Peter but a comment on how he chose to work instead of just sitting in the lap of luxury.

Noah liked him a lot, and that said something to Stiles. That and the fact that his father hadn't said a single thing even though he had to have known what Peter and Stiles had started.

"We didn't pay," Stiles said as Peter parked his car.

"What?" Peter asked. He turned the car off and opened up his door but didn't move to leave. He looked at Stiles.

"Dad and I...I heard him tell the waitress that he was paying, but we never actually did."

"Don't worry about it. I'm sure that Erica has already comped the food. I had already told her to do the drinks. I'm glad you like the London Fog."

"I can't stand coffee anymore, and I used to mainline it. I mean, like there was one point in high school that Dad told me that I smelled more like coffee than myself. Tea I can handle, though. Well, most of them. The smoke tea I can't do."

"Do you like tea?"

"Yeah. I had dad send me a few things from the tea shop in town."

Peter grinned at him and got out. Stiles moved to open his door, but he stopped when he saw that Peter was headed around the car. He dropped his hand from the door just as Peter opened it up. Gurney was still in Stiles' lap, but he seemed to be asleep. The hare hadn't moved at all for most of the trip, but as Stiles put his hand into Peter's Gurney disappeared. Stiles unfolded himself from the car and followed along behind Peter as the man pulled him to the door. He unlocked the house and turned off the alarm.

"Sentinel friendly alarm."

"Yes. Everything in my house is. I never saw myself settling down, but I figured that it would be less work to make sure. Besides, I have two online family members and, of course, your father in my life. It just made sense. I'll make us a pot of tea, and you can wander around the house and familiarize yourself with it. I have no secrets from you."

"Even what's in your bedside drawer?" Stiles asked.

Peter laughed and waved Stiles to go away.

Stiles looked at the living room first. It was the first big room that he came to. Peter had headed down the hallway that the front door opened up onto. The living room was simple, furniture that looked good but also looked like it was built to last and be comfortable. Beyond, there was a dining room that had a table that was mostly covered in recipes and other papers that looked like they had to do with running the restaurant. The kitchen was beyond that, and Stiles entered to find Peter at the stove, putting a tea kettle on the stove. There was a pot beside where he was that Stiles could smell tea leaves in. There was a cabinet that was beside where Stiles was, and it was where most of the tea smell was coming from. He walked to where he could see it. There were a lot of teas from the shop in town there, including Stiles's favorite for drinking with breakfast.

The stairs to head up to the second floor were by the living room, so Stiles headed down the hallway to go up to that floor. He found that Peter's scent was coming strongly from the library on the second floor. He found such a concentrated scent that he stopped and inhaled so deep that his lungs became uncomfortable with how far they had spread out. This was where Peter stayed most of the time when he was home. Stiles could see the evidence that he had fallen asleep on the couch that got the morning sun the most a few times. The pattern that was worn into the cushions was very evident to Stiles' eyes. He looked around the room slowly. Walking to the shelf where there were first editions of every single of the original Dune series sitting on the shelf. He walked his fingers down them as he looked at them. He could tell that they had been read but that they were also well cared for. Stiles wondered what kind of discussions they could get into about the characters. They seemed to both have a type given what they had named their Spirit Animals.

Stiles left the room and went to the master bedroom. The other rooms didn't matter to him. He could smell that Peter's family had laid claim to a few of them, and he wasn't going to touch another Sentinel's area inside of the house. He could smell Spencer's room, as well. Stiles knew that he had come online recently after meeting a Sentinel who was slowly coming online as well. They were good friends, and Stiles had been happy to hear that they were slowly becoming more.

Peter's bedroom was a reflection of the rest of the house. Things were comfortable but meant to last. It smelled heavily of Peter in here. He could smell that Peter had jerked off recently and hadn't changed the sheets since then. Stiles walked around the foot of the bed and touched the sheets before he laid down on them, his feet hanging off the side of the bed. He closed his eyes and inhaled again. The scent of Peter's arousal wasn't too strong in the bed, but it was enough that it calmed Stiles. There was something under it all that Stiles hadn't been able to place yet in Peter's scent. A bit of him that was harder to uncover, and it wasn't until Stiles turned his head and grabbed Peter's pillow and placed it over his face to inhale that he caught it. Bergamot and black tea. Stiles' nose had been filled with it at a restaurant from the drinks made there, and what he was drinking meant that he hadn't realized that it was also buried in Peter's natural scent. It was good, the scent of him. It calmed Stiles down again, and he left the pillow where it was.

The sound of soft steps across the wood in the hall told Stiles that Peter was coming to find him. He felt no shame in what he was doing, so he left the pillow where it was. There was the clink of mugs on wood, and then the pillow was being lifted up. Stiles looked at Peter's face and saw the soft look that was there.

"Done exploring?" Peter asked.

"For now. I heard you set the alarm." Stiles had pushed the sound of the alarm buzzing lowly from the spot on the wall by the balcony doors and hadn't really let the sound settle on his mind until then.

"It's a habit from years of living here. So, how do you feel about me climbing up on you?" Peter moved until he was standing right at Stiles' knees, his legs spread to where they were on either side of Stiles'.

Stiles didn't answer with words, but he pushed himself up and kicked off his shoes before laying with his feet sticking off the bed. Peter had one of the biggest beds that Stiles had ever seen. It was square-shaped and had to take special sheets to fit it. Peter crawled up on the bed and braced himself above Stiles with a smile on his face. Slowly, Peter leaned down, nosing under Stiles' chin. Stiles tipped his chin up, and he was rewarded with the sound of Peter inhaling. Then Peter licked up the column of Stiles' neck.

"HEY!" Stiles yelled, and he moved. He didn't stop until Peter was prostrate under him, his hands holding down Peter's to the bed. The scent of Peter's arousal filled up Stiles' nose as he stared down at his Guide. The scent of bergamot got stronger, and Stiles wanted to bury himself in that scent and never leave.

"I'm yours, do what you will, Sentinel," Peter said.

"I will."

* * *

Peter knew that Stiles was no stranger to sex. Noah had been more than willing to discuss the things that he had found his son getting up to with his friends in high school. The shell he had been in after his mother's death hadn't lasted long at all with people like Jackson Whittemore, Danny Māhealani, and Lydia Martin being his friends. He looked at the way that Stiles was looking at him, drinking in the sight of him with his eyes. Peter was pretty sure that Stiles had learned the scent and probably the sound of him already, but Peter wanted it all.

Stiles stripped him slowly, taking his time to caress every inch of skin that was revealed, with his eyes, his fingers, and then to torture Peter, his tongue. Stiles was a great conversationalist, but Peter wanted to keep his tongue's other abilities to himself. There was nothing that Peter could do to control his orgasm, and he didn't want to. He wanted to feel that forever. The clench of his muscles and then the feel of flying that came right after as his Guide abilities unlocked a little more from the tight lid that he had on them. He brushed up against Stiles' mind as the younger man finally started to strip himself since Peter was naked.

Peter didn't move at all, he knew that Stiles was holding onto himself to not glut himself in all ways. After the strip that Peter had endured, he knew that Stiles' last three senses were primed on Peter. Peter had been thoroughly touched and tasted. The look of him though had been taken in just as easily.

Stiles walked around the edge of the bed and opened up the drawer that had Peter's lube. He wasn't shocked that Stiles knew exactly which drawer it was. It wasn't like he was trying to hide it. The smell was probably all over the outside of it, it and the smell of Peter when he was aroused. Stiles cocked his head to the side as he took in Peter lying where he had left him on the bed. Peter wanted to know what was going through his head, but he wasn't sure if breaking this silent spell they were in was a good idea.

Reaching out, Peter felt that Stiles was in total control. He wasn't anywhere near snapping, despite how much Peter could feel he wanted to just jump on the bed.

"My best friend in grade school was someone who I hated for a while. He was a little asshole who tried to punish the world for him being adopted. Or his parents not telling him as early as he felt they should have. He came online as a Sentinel pretty early, an issue with a huge fight with his girlfriend, and then she was mugged. I always knew that she was a Guide who was just on the edge of coming online, and in the wake of that attack, not only did she come online and pretty much put the guy into a coma defending herself, her boyfriend, and his best friend both came online as well. They have a very, very weird three-person relationship that I don't ask a lot about. They are all in the New Haven area since their schools are all in that area. Anyway, I was safe. Jackson's Sentinel side never saw an issue with me. The crush I had on Lydia was short and fleeting because she knew that she was gonna marry Jackson one day. I made sure that Jackson never treated her like shit. Anyway, the big thing about that is that I know that there are some that Sentinels feel can be touchy with their Guides, but I'm...I am not built like that. I mean, your family is very, very different but other people."

Peter held out his hand, and Stiles slipped his into it. Tugging on the hand, Peter guided Stiles up to where he was straddling his thighs. "I don't let people touch me. The ones that get away with small, simple touches are those at work when I'm on a line—a hand on my shoulder when they are moving past me. There are too many people in there and the way that it sounds, it caused issues when we all declared when we were moving behind someone with sharps or hot things. So they call it now and touch just as they get behind someone. It's always shoulder, though. Of course, we brushed against each other when reaching for things. I rarely shake hands with people as they don't like to wash hands when they should."

"Those are fine. I mean, it's standard, and I can smell it on you even now, but the scents are so muddled that I would be fine. It's not touching with intention. It's those that I don't think I can do. I can't...I can't share you."

"Is that what Jackson does with his two Guides?"

"Oh, he has no issue with watching Danny and Lydia cuddling, but Danny's gay. Lydia and Danny have a very platonic relationship. But Jackson can't stand someone touching Lydia that isn't Danny or me. Probably because he knows that I don't have feelings for her like that. I don't know." Stiles looked Peter up and down for a few seconds before tossing the lube up toward the pillow and slipped off him.

Peter watched Stiles as he figured out what he wanted. There was a look of deep concentration on his face.

"I can feel you, at the edges of my mind. I want to feel that more before we go further."

Peter sat up as Stiles sat down at the head of the bed. When Peter was settled his calves hanging off the bed, Stiles laid down himself, putting himself on display. Peter took his time drawing his legs up on the bed and moving to straddle his Sentinel. He leaned down, rubbing his nose over Stiles' neck. He wasn't going to lick Stiles' neck again, but he was tempted. Peter knew that there wasn't going to be a Sentinel that didn't know that he was Stiles' after this. He just really hoped that no one in the family put a stink about it.

Stiles tensed, and Peter sat up again. Stiles moved, sliding under Peter and getting off the bed. Stiles stalked out of the room, moving not only like a Sentinel but a trained fighter like he was. That thrilled Peter more than it should. He had always had a bit of a danger kink. He blamed his entire family for that. They had been Sentinels and Guides since the first had been recorded. They had moved round the world for a while before settling in Beacon Hills when it was founded. This town, this area was as much anyone else's as it was theirs. It was why Talia and Gregory had their fingers in it. It was why Gerard Argent had wanted to control it. It was assumed that Derek would take over years from now when Noah retired as the Sheriff of the county and probably ascend to the leader of the area for Sentinels and Guides. Peter wasn't so sure about that anymore.

Peter got up and followed Stiles until he found him looking down at the road. Peter stepped behind him, twitching the curtains open just a little more to be able to see what was going on. Then he saw the cruiser turn in the cul-de-sac. He couldn't see who it was as they were too far back and the number was too small.

"Derek," Stiles said.

"Ah. Probably checking on us."

The car stopped, and Stiles snorted.

"Tell my father he can come and check himself," Stiles said. He closed the curtain and turned around to face Peter. They were still so very close to each other, and it was something that Peter loved. He laid his hand on Stiles' hip and pulled him just that little bit closer, nuzzling at his neck before he inhaled. His senses weren't nearly as strong as Stiles', but there was still a scent to him that Peter loved.

Peter snorted. He figured that Noah had set the deputies patrolling around on a check on the area since they were technically in their bonding period. If something was going to go wrong, it was going to be now. Not that Stiles would hurt him or Peter would hurt Stiles, but anyone else who felt like they had a claim on Peter, or even Stiles would come out now. The area hadn't had a challenge to bonding in over a decade, but with Stiles' luck, it would happen to them. He started to walk backward, and Stiles began to push slightly. It was a push and pull all the way back to the bed before Stiles shoved Peter down onto it.

There were only seconds for Peter to move, and he did, grabbing Stiles and showing that he had his own strength. He put Stiles on his back. Stiles went willingly, submitting to Peter in a way that showed just how much Stiles trusted him at the moment. Stiles reached up and cupped the side of Peter's face, his fingers tracing the edge of his jaw.

"What do you want?" Peter asked.

"I wanna feel you on my body. Know what it feels like. Learn it so that I would know it even asleep." Stiles closed his eyes, and his body went limp.

Peter started at his forehead, placing a chaste kiss there and leaving his scent as well but brushing his cheek over his temple. He moved down Stiles' body, touching and kissing. Peter thinned his shields around his mind a little more with each pass of fingers on skin. It felt good to him, opening up slowly to his Sentinel. There had been literature given to him by the facility where he had gone to back at college to learn everything that he needed to not be a burden on the world around him. Sanitized journals that were from one of the first Sentinel and Guide pair to give up information that was more concrete on how they had found each other and how they had built a life together. It had taught Peter more about how to treat his Sentinel if he found one than the other information he had been given. Training had been simple for someone like Peter.

"Now what?" Peter asked as he leaned back between Stiles' spread legs when his exploration of Stiles' body was done.

"Now you are going to come up here and lay down, and I'm going to prep you," Stiles said as he sat up and moved to the side, the lube in his hand. Peter hadn't even seen him going for it. He did as Stiles said, and as soon as he spread his legs, Stiles was there. The heat of him was a brand against his legs. There was no wait time at all, and then there were fingers pressing into him. Peter was so relaxed and used to it that he felt nothing really other than the pleasure of Stiles being inside of him. Stiles' fingers were warm, despite how hot Peter. It was like now that they were moving on this, he could feel his arousal. "Second to last taste to settle."

Peter wasn't sure what Stiles was talking about until he felt lips on the tip of his cock. The kiss was barely there before the lips were sliding down his cock. Peter thrust up into his mouth, and between that feeling, his shields wrapping around the both of them, and Stiles' fingers finding his prostate; Peter was gone. He came, grabbing the bed with one hand and the back of Stiles' head with the other. He felt the pure pleasure that Stiles was feeling at tasting his release that Peter didn't worry about not warning him. The finger inside of his pulled out before going back in with more lube. Peter used the hand on Stiles' head to pull him up. Stiles moved up, his tongue sliding up Peter's belly and then chest before he kissed Peter.

The shields that he had control of slipped all the way, and Peter felt their bond flare hard and fast in his mind. He felt the quiet contentment that Stiles was feeling from being there with Peter. The happiness that he had for finding Peter. There was nothing left to do but ride the wave for Peter, binding them together so that nothing could tear them apart. It was instinct, the bonding. There were couples that Peter knew were pushed to the edge of feral to be able to bond on the level that Peter could feel Stiles was pushing into it. They were so in control of their lives that giving up anything meant breaking themselves down. Peter felt none of that as he let Stiles see all that he was, and he saw all that Stiles was. There was nothing left to show each other.

As Stiles pushed inside of him, the feel of slick lube gave way to the heat of his body, and where there was only Peter in his mind, there was another person burning brightly. Stiles became a shield that stopped everything but what Peter wanted to let through. He felt the pull and followed Stiles back into his mind. Peter felt the feralness that hovered at the back of Stiles' mind as he had done what was needed to avenge his team. Peter showed Stiles everything he had felt when he had found out that plans that Kate Argent had for the family, but most especially Derek. They were two people who would burn the world for their family and anyone they called a friend.

Peter kept on kissing Stiles, even though they were long past the point where either of them was doing it well. What mattered was the bond, laying each other just as bare as their skin was. Peter pushed until no recess of Stiles' mind wasn't claimed by him, and Stiles did the same just like he was claiming Peter's body.

Orgasm slammed into Peter, and he couldn't hold back the last bit of his mind, and the world whited out.

* * *

Stiles felt safe and warm for the first time in what felt like his entire life, but he knew that he had felt like this when his mother had been alive and even in the wake of her death when his father told him that he still had him. He felt good. His mind hummed with the feel of the bond, and even though Peter wasn't in bed with him, he could feel that he was close by. Somewhere in the house. Stiles let his hearing open up a little and heard the sound of flickering flame and sizzling. Peter was cooking breakfast.

The bed moved, and Stiles looked down to see Thufir on the bed with his body stretched in where Stiles knew Peter had slept. Then the pillow that Stiles was on started to shake.

Stiles laughed. It was Gurney, and he was scratching or something. Spirit Animals were rarely fully corporeal, but right now, they were both still kind of riding the high of the bond, so they were more in-person in the world than they normally would be. Stiles reached up and snagged Gurney around the neck and pulled him down to cuddle him. If he couldn't get Peter, this would work. The smell of cooking meat started to fill the bedroom, and Stiles knew that soon he would be getting up and heading down to see what the food situation was. He saw a stack of clothes there on the foot of the bed just below where Thufir was acting like he was sleeping. He smiled as it was some of Peter's clothes. The soft vibration of a phone had Stiles looking around. He found his cell phone on the bedside stand, beside the bottle of lube. Stiles grabbed his phone and checked the time. It was just about dinner time.

Bonding sometimes took a long time, and time was always relative when it passed for those bonding anyway. Stiles felt a brush of Peter over his mind, and he allowed the brush and then the affection that came after. It was like Peter had always been in his mind. He remembered meeting him when he was younger. Peter hadn't been that much older, really not to someone like Stiles who spent more time around adults than he did other kids. Other than his five close friends, no one really liked him. He and Jackson had become friends because of their fathers and the jobs that they had. Danny and Lydia had tagged along with that, and Cora had been a force of nature that hadn't allowed Stiles to be anything but her friend. Though, now Stiles wasn't sure what the Hales thought about Peter bonding with someone who was the same age as one of his nieces. It was only a decade, but there were still those in the world who didn't like age gaps.

Looking at the text, Stiles saw that it was his father telling him that he was on his way over and was going to leave Stiles' bag that he had arrived with on the front porch so that Stiles could have his things with him. Stiles felt a little bad as he had been looking forward to living with his father for a little while before he found a place to live because he wasn't living in the dorms at the university. Though he guessed that once school started in September, it wasn't going to matter where he was living. His father and Peter got along well enough that Stiles hoped that maybe his father felt good enough to come here to hang sometimes.

Stiles heard the vehicle pulling onto the end of the road, and he let go of Gurney to get his clothes on. He walked down the stairs and to the front door, opening it as his father got out of his SUV. He looked up at Stiles, shocked.

"How are you feeling?" Noah asked as he opened up the back hatch to get the bag out. There was a second bag with it, and Stiles figured that it was the clothes that he had started in the wash.

"Predatory as hell right now, but you are good to come in." Stiles grabbed the bags from his father and stepped back to allow him to set foot in the house. Noah eyed him as he stepped foot inside but kept on going right back to the kitchen.

Peter had a pot of tea on the table already as well as place settings for all three of them. Stiles walked up to Peter and laid his hands on his hips and nuzzled at his neck. He kissed his neck.

"Dinner smells great."

"Meat and potatoes. How could it go wrong?" Noah asked.

Stiles laughed and grabbed a few of the dishes of food while Peter grabbed the last and the utensils needed to dip it all up. Noah poured out three cups of the tea, it smelled like something fruity. "Did you make herbal?"

"Yes. We had a nap, but I still don't want either of us wired. We might not have to be anywhere the next few days, but I don't want to get too out of whack on my sleeping schedule."

"Yes, Dear," Stiles said. He looked at Peter to see the man narrow his eyes as him. Stiles grinned and pressed his leg to Peter's. The contact was good, even if it was clothed. He reached out and grabbed the first dish to get his portion out of it before handing it to his father. They worked their way through all of the food that way. The spice level on everything was good for Stiles. He figured that Peter had learned easily how to not overwhelm the palate of a Sentinels. He had heard the customers the day before telling the wait staff if they were online and what their issue spices were. It seemed like it was kind of routine. Stiles had a few issues with stronger spices, but none of them were ones that he smelled in too much quantity in the food he had smelled coming out of the kitchen. It wasn't the best way to do things, but Stiles would rather ask them to remake than to drop something out of the meal that he liked just in case they got too heavy. It had worked for him at a few places he had been at before he had been released back to civilian life. He had pissed off so many of the people who had tried to train him the way that others were trained. He had to explain that it hadn't worked for anyone else and let him learn independently. It had worked out best.

"I also wanted to talk to you, Stiles," Noah said when they were done eating.

Stiles was at the sink, rinsing the plates off and then sticking them into the dishwasher. There were a few other things in there, so Stiles figured that Peter did a load when it was full. Since he was alone and probably ate most meals at work, it was understandable not wanting to let the dishes just sit in the sink. He finished that up and turned around to face his father.

"I have a new opening now."

"I want to finish college."

"I know that you do, but I can get you into the rapid program and get that done before school starts up. Then we can have you working as a desk officer while you are in school. Longer when needed and sometimes out in the field if the need arises. It's just a modified plan of what we would have had you doing."

"It's because I'm bonded, isn't it?" Stiles asked.

"Yes. We actually don't have many bonded Sentinels in the county, and there is special approval for someone to come in and work like that while they are adjusting. I slipped the paperwork into your bag. It's on the top. Talk it over with Peter. He would only be needed in classes with you one to two days a week. I'm sure that we can figure something out. You are high enough level that you don't need a Guide with you on the job, but he'll have to go through some training on his own with them to make sure that he can handle you if you are stressed on the job. It'll run you right up to school starting on the training."

Stiles nodded his head. He knew that his father was stressed with a lot of things for and having Stiles working with him would help to settle him down some. Stiles could work on the evidence of some of the cases quicker if he did this. He wanted it. He knew that he didn't do with sitting well at all, and while he had plans for the summer, to get to know Beacon Hills again, he could do that with Peter on the weekends and after training. He could do this if he wanted. Stiles wasn't going to make a decision about anything before he talked to Peter, though. All of this affected him, and Peter had a solid life. Stiles wasn't sure how much he was needed at the restaurant in a cooking capacity. The scents of the restaurant were faded on him after they had cleaned up after they had bonded. It was more than enough to discuss over the next few days.

"When?"

"I would need to know by Sunday night to get you into classes on Monday."

Stiles nodded his head. "You'll know Friday."

"Okay. I was going to wait until Friday to talk to you about this, but you invited me. I figured you wouldn't dig too far into your bag since I pulled all of your clothes out of the dryer. Call me if you need. I'm not working until tomorrow morning. I'm going home and probably passing out."

Stiles pushed off the sink and walked over to give his father a huge hug. He felt Peter's hand on his back, and it had him pull back. He felt that tension creeping into his mind, it was muffled, though. It seemed he was at the end of what he would allow for someone who wasn't them in their home. He had lasted longer than he thought. Stiles watched his father leave and followed him to the door. He turned the alarm back on when his father was down the street.

"I knew exactly what I was getting into, Stiles. I could have pushed it away. It's not like there is only one Sentinel for me. So point blank, yes or no, do you want to start there Monday?" Peter asked.

"Yes. I'm..." Stiles pulled Peter into his arms there, and he enjoyed the feel of the man in them. They were of even height, and Peter had muscle on him; it wasn't anywhere near what Stiles had on his person due to his training, but he was fit. They could probably spar enough to give Stiles a good workout. "I don't do well with nothing to do. I figure that this had been my dad's plan anyway because he knows me. Did you know that I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid? It was a little while before they realized that it was more that I was latent. Even in kids, there are those that other Sentinels and Guides just know are going to come online at some point. For a while, they thought I was going to be a Guide, I mothered the hell out of everyone. I mean, it got so bad at one point that a few of my classmates tried to make fun of me by calling me Mama Stilinski. Jackson beat the shit out of them. It was quite entertaining from the standpoint of me here and now."

Peter laughed at that, and he looked up at Stiles with a brighter smile on his lips. "I've met him a few times. I know that he's a good Sentinel, once he came online. Your father has never said a bad word about him even though he does curse his name."

"Well, I got into a lot of shit growing up, and he was never able to figure out if it was me dragging Jackson into it or Jackson dragging me. For the record, it's about fifty-fifty." Stiles started to walk toward the living room, pulling Peter along with him. He pushed Peter down onto the couch and then laid on top of him. He laid his head over Peter's heart.

"Tell me about them," Peter said.

Stiles started to tell him how he met every single one of his friends, starting with Jackson and being forced to play with him because of politics as Stiles put it and then going down to how he met Cora. It was a long tale, and Stiles felt his eyes dropping as he got to the end of it, but he wasn't ready for bed just yet.

"Cora told me once about a woman you met when you were younger. How you actually got a lawyer from a local firm to sue her family for defamation of character."

Peter laughed.

"Well, that is kind of what happened. Cora was home at the time when I blew up, and the woman was sued for trying to get me thrown in jail when I was seventeen. I was a minor, but she was an adult. It's not nearly as entertaining, but the thing is that she didn't know I was seventeen. I was already in college due to graduating high school early. My school mates were not nearly as fun as yours, and I just focused on classes so I could get out of there early. Freshman year, I tested out of nearly every single math class as math was always easy for me, and I self-taught myself most of it. From there, it was easy to throw in other classes from sophomore year in English and social studies so that I could get those over and done with as well. I worked hard on learning the sciences, and by the time that I hit sophomore year, I tested out of the ones that I would need to take except for one. I threw in more classes and tested out of a few others. Once I passed the test for them, I got the credits the way that the school was set up at the time. So I graduated two years early from high school with more than enough passing credits. Colleges were interested in me after that because everyone wants a genius. I picked the best for the law. I do love law and everything to do with it, but by the time that I passed the bar, I lost my love to want to practice it. I cooked for stress relief and had taken a few classes here and there in business management when I had the holes in my pre-law track."

"What happened with the lady?" Stiles asked.

"Well, she thought I was an adult, and she was just recently an adult as well. She didn't try anything sexually with me but thought that I was going to be held to some weird as hell contract that she thought she could trick me into signing. Of course, I was a minor, and I didn't sign my name but my father's. It was fun."

Stiles shook his head and liked the way that it changed Peter's scent from laughter to contentment. He could get used to this.

* * *

Peter wiped his hands on the towel that he had over his shoulder and waited for Stiles to approach him. He felt the hands on his hips before he felt anything else. The hands were firm and solid, squeezing tightly for a few seconds before sliding to where they were pressed to his belly, pulling him back into Stiles' arms more. He tipped his head to the side and allowed Stiles to brush his lips on his neck before his nose found the area of skin right behind his ear. He could feel the slight shaking of Stiles' body, but he said nothing.

The door on the far side of the kitchen opened up, and Peter saw that it was Derek who came in. He was smiling, but it was a forced one. Peter had felt Stiles' mental pain over their bond, but every single time he had pushed mentally to ask if Stiles wanted him, he was pushed away. Stiles liked to protect him from some of the worst cases that he worked on, stating that Peter didn't need some of those images in his head, and Peter was kind of glad of it. The stuff that he had worked with Stiles during training had been enough to give him minor nightmares. Though, the only bright side was that Peter's night sweats had stopped.

Though, Peter had figured out after a week of Stiles living with him that it was because Stiles wasn't waking up in sweats anymore. He had seen it in the file that Stiles had with him that was supposed to be given to his father as his show of being prepared for civilian life. Stiles had given it to Peter instead. Peter hadn't freaked out about finding out that they were connected from the moment that Stiles had come online. Hell, Peter had woken up from a night of good sleep and hadn't been able to go back the day that Stiles had come online. Given how interconnected they both were on the family front, Peter hadn't been shocked. There were those that had connections like that, and it wasn't that much of an oddity.

"Need pie?" Peter asked when the nose went away from his skin.

Stiles just nodded his head. The rest of the kitchen staff was ignoring him. It was Saturday, which meant that Stiles was working a few hours on actual patrol duty with Derek, and they stopped in if needed to get lunch before Stiles went back to working the desk at the station and working on homework. He worked a few hours each day right after classes ended, then a full ten-hour shift on Saturdays with four hours of that on patrol, and then the other six working the desk. Sunday, he was off, no matter what. He usually had his school work done before that, so it wasn't that odd to find him either with Peter at Carinae either watching him work and working ahead on homework in a corner in the kitchen, or out front where he drank more tea than he probably should.

"He's off," Derek said.

"He's still got several hours."

"Yeah. I'm off as well. The call-out that we got was...very bad. We've both got meetings with a psychologist on Monday. Sheriff's orders and we were told that if we tried to skip, he was gonna lock us in a cell, and the meeting with her would happen there."

Peter wasn't going to ask. He didn't like to. There were times that Derek and Stiles wanted to talk about cases, and there were times that they didn't. Derek's words meant that he didn't want to, so Peter left it alone.

"Well, I think that Isaac just pulled some peach crumb pies out of the oven. If you are good and go sit, I'll get you both a slice or two each.

"Two," Stiles said.

"Okay, dearest," Peter said. He turned his head to press a kiss to whatever skin he could get. Stiles only let him go when Peter tapped at his hand.

Stiles and Derek were both still in uniform with guns attached. Peter loved the look of his Sentinel in his uniform, but now was not the time to think about those things. Still, Peter was pretty sure that his pants were tighter than he needed to wear them. Stiles was still just as built as he had been when he had come home, the small gym that they had built into the basement was enough to keep him in fighting form as he called it. Stiles only needed four hours of sleep if he slept the whole night through, which he was finally settled into. New in town and a new house meant that his sleeping had been interrupted when something new made a sound around the house. Still, he had adapted well, and now a month into his classes at the college, Stiles was finally on a very even keel when it came to his senses.

The bond between them pulsed with vibrancy, and it helped to settle Peter. Just being around Peter in the restaurant was enough for Stiles most days. Their routine was pretty set in stone now.

Peter heard the steamer wand start up on the espresso machine, and he laughed a little as he walked over to where Isaac was cutting into a peach pie. He just it into fourths instead of the standard eighths before he dished up all four onto plates. He tugged one toward himself and then pushed the other three across to Peter.

"Thanks, Isaac."

"Yeah. Just..." Isaac looked at where Derek and Stiles were probably sitting on the other side of the wall and shook his head.

"I will." Peter brushed his fingers over Isaac's cheek. The young man wasn't a Guide, but he was sensitive in many ways. He snagged the three plates and slipped out into the front of the house. They weren't open for lunch yet, but Erica was busy with drinks. Well, it looked like she was busy with drinks for Stiles and Derek. She was grinning as she made Derek a coffee, but it looked like Stiles had gone for iced for his standard drink.

"Asshole," Stiles said when Erica set down Derek's coffee on the table.

"Hey, you can drink Mexican, and I can't," Derek pointed out.

Stiles grinned and nodded his head. His eyes were still not as vibrant as they normally were, but it was good enough for Peter to know that he was getting a little better.

Time healed that kind of stuff for Sentinels, but working in the job that they did, it would take longer as the case needed to be closed out, and then if there was someone alive to prosecute, they would be called into court. Stiles was built for this though, he had the support of his father and his years working the job to help build on. Stiles had also learned well how to deal after seeing his father doing the same when he was younger.

"Here," Peter said as he stepped up to the table. He set the three plates down before going behind the bar to grab three forks. He snagged a cup that was sitting there with his name on it before he walked over to sit down. Stiles, though stood up as he got close to the table. Peter smiled and sat down in the chair that Stiles had been in before he sat down in Peter's lap. Peter rubbed his nose over Stiles' neck and enjoyed the feel of him in his lap. He wrapped his arm around Stiles' stomach before he started to dig into his pie.

Derek's was already mostly gone. The man had a sweet tooth a mile wide when it came to pie, and if Peter had handed over a whole one, he could easily eat the whole thing.

"Have you guys eaten lunch?" Peter asked.

"Nah, too early. I was gonna grab a salad and take it home to eat it when I felt like it. Stiles was gonna just eat leftovers, he said." Derek looked up at Stiles like he was afraid that he had given up something that Stiles didn't want him to.

"We have that casserole in the fridge," Peter said.

"Ah," Derek said.

"What it's good!" Stiles said.

Peter was glad that they had finally got him to say something. When he was quiet, it wasn't good.

The door opening drew Peter's eyes to the door, and he saw that it was Noah, who had Stiles' school backpack in one hand and his clothes one in the other. Peter laughed at the look of betrayal that there was no slice of pie for him. The doors to the back opened up, and Isaac was there with his slice of pie and another in his hand for Erica. He looked at the Sheriff and looked like a kid who had gotten caught with his hand in the cookie jar.

"Sheriff, peach or brambleberry?"

"Berry," Noah answered.

Isaac walked over and dropped Erica's slice on the table for Noah before wandering back into the kitchen. He came out a minute later with another slice for Erica. He slid it across the bar to her before dropping into a seat that allowed him to look at everyone at the table.

"Smells fresh," Noah said.

"Just out of the oven. They are for the lunch crowd. They are getting pie today. I'm working on little tarts for dinner. The dough is setting up in the fridge right now."

"What kind of tarts?"

"Seven kinds. Check the website for the list," Isaac said. He gave Noah a little glare, and the man just laughed.

"You are getting better at that, kid," Noah said before he dug into his pie.

Isaac nodded his head.

"Better at what?" Stiles asked. He was looking between Isaac and his father.

"All of the desserts are up on the website. I change the header at the top to show what I am making for that day. Each desert is described in detail. I used to spend so much time going over it all when everything was there. It's the tool we use to train the wait staff so that they can give an accurate description. I also list known allergens in each one."

"There is also a listing for the foods that Karen can't eat." Erica sounded a little put out at that.

"Karen?" Stiles asked Peter.

Peter pressed a kiss to Stiles' head before he started to talk.

"Karen is a regular who has been found to have a very interesting stomach. She can't eat sour cream but is okay with pretty much every single other dairy product. So there is a little symbol that I made for her, and it's added to the start of every dish across the whole of the menu that she can't eat.

"Oh, it's the palm tree!" Stiles said.

"Yes. She found out that she was having issues with it when she was on a trip to Florida. It was easy to do that as we don't put it in much, but it does go in a few of Isaac's desserts. There are a couple that Isaac has gotten Greek Yogurt to work in, so he's been slowly moving to that just because it's just as easy and Greek Yogurt is coming down in price to match sour cream, and sometimes I can get it for cheaper. It doesn't always work in the main dishes, but Boyd is trying. There are a few that Karen likes that are on the main menu that she's happy to try again."

Stiles hummed in answer and dug into his pie again before snagging his tea and taking a drink of it. He slipped back into Peter's hold more and just enjoyed being right there. Peter could feel his contentment through their bond. He figured that Stiles was going to hang here for the rest of the day. The table that Peter usually sat at would work for him to settle down so that he could work without the bother of people moving around them. The table was never counted in the listings for reservations, and the only time that the host staff ever put someone there was if Peter was in the back cooking.

Noah stayed long enough to eat his pie and drink three cups of coffee before heading out just as the restaurant opened for lunch. He looked like he was worried about leaving, but he did when Stiles glared at him.

Peter laughed and buried his face in Stiles' back when Noah grumbled the entire way out. Peter couldn't understand what he was saying, but he figured that Derek did, given the way that he was laughing his ass off.

"Oh, look. It's lunchtime. That means you two can stay right here and eat. You are going to eat whatever I put in front of you and like it, or I'm going to tell your mother, Derek."

Derek held up his hands in surrender.

"Burger," Stiles said as he stood up to allow Peter to slip out from under him. "Fries. Curly or I'm not eating."

"Of course, darling."

The restaurant had a fair good amount of people that ate in there every Saturday so Peter slipped into the back so that he could cook lunch for Derek and Stiles before the rush hit. Boyd, it seemed already had the fries sitting and ready to be dredged before dropping them. The burgers were already on the grill. Peter raised an eyebrow.

"Cora called. Said that they had a hard one and that they would want comfort food. I know what that is for both of them. Derek's cheesy hash browns are in the skillet, and Isaac's watching them."

"Remind me to give you a raise," Peter said.

Boyd laughed and messed with the food on the grill before tossing the buns on there. Peter threw together a salad for each both of them and handed them to Erica when she came into the back for more lemons.

"Need help?" Peter asked as orders started to come back.

"Nope. You go and deal with them, I got the food." Boyd pointed his turner at Peter and then at the door.

Peter raised his hands and headed out there.

The salads were already pretty much gone by the time that Peter sat down. He wasn't hungry yet, it was too early for him, but he plucked one of the tomatoes from Stiles' bowl and popped it into his mouth. Stiles stabbed him with his fork, and Peter just stuck his tongue out at him.

* * *

Stiles rotated his shoulders as he read over the passage again. He frowned and grabbed the other file before scooting this one to the side. He read over that witness statement.

"DAD!" Stiles yelled. He grabbed the two files and the other stacks that related to the cold case that he was working on.

"Stiles, don't yell," Noah said as Stiles entered his office.

Stiles looked up at him and frowned before shoving the file at his father. He pointed at the witness statement. One paragraph of it and then showed him the corresponding statement from the other person.

"And?" Noah asked after he read it.

The case had been cold for a decade before Noah had started to work at the station, which he had still been in the Army.

"Dad, the festival wasn't held in that part of the park that year. I did a report on it in my civics class when we dealt with local things. It was not held because the wind storm had ripped apart the trees in the park area where it was held. The trees were still being repaired, and they were hoping to keep them alive after losing so many branches."

"And?"

"So that one was not there to help set up, and the other wasn't arriving to do the same. The body wasn't found for a year after the crime had happened. It was close to there, but that area right there had no reason to have them there at that time of the morning. There is no running trail there. The two who gave that statement after the park staff saw them there were probably hoping that no one would realize it."

"Damn." Noah took the last file on the case and pulled it close. It was a single person dead with no apparent enemies. The only two people she had been on the outs with had an alibi. Setting up for the festival that happened in that part of the park. They were seen in that area with everyone else, but they were not setting up. "I'll see if the DNA matches them."

"They are already in jail," Stiles said.

"What?" Noah asked.

"Yeah, I was looking up all people associated with the case, and they were the only ones interviewed who ended up in jail. Dobbs is in prison for assault and battery and spousal abuse. Franks is in prison for murder. He got into a fight with someone, and he then went to their house and killed him. Their DNA is in the system. We can see if the two sets of saliva that were found on the body match them enough. It won't do much, but it would be a reason to get them kept in jail and would get this case closed."

"Sure. I'll look into it. Leave it all here. Now go and work on that paper."

"Oh, it's done. I've got all of my classwork done. With Peter bed-bound, he just wants to cuddle, so I sit in bed at night with him, and he sleeps with his head pressed to my thigh. So I've been barreling through all of my school stuff at night. I literally have nothing else to work on, so I'm going through cold cases for the county."

"How is Peter doing?"

"Well, he's still bitching because I make him wear his sling in the house unless he's in bed. His leg is up on the ottoman all the time if he's in the living room. He's being a brat, and I'm a tyrant."

Noah shook his head and waved Stiles out of his office.

Stiles looked at the time and realized that he was an hour late for his lunch break. He grabbed his things up and waved at Parrish, who was working on paperwork. Parrish nodded his head that he would take over the front desk. There wasn't a lot going on in the county at the moment. They had the normal idiots doing stupid things, but at least it wasn't a lot of idiots doing stupid things like the month before. Which was why Peter had a dislocated shoulder that he didn't like to leave alone and a broken leg. Two idiots had tried to hold up the bank, then fled on foot and tried to hide in Carinae. This hadn't worked out well for them, considering that Peter had taken out the first one with minimal injury, but Erica had come in the door to the back and startled all of them. That had caused the second robber to jerk Peter and dislocate his shoulder in the process. The broken leg had come just after that, then the man had then shoved over one of the stoves onto his leg.

No one else had been around since all of the main prep was done, and the staff had wandered around the block a little to get some fresh air before they came back to work on getting things ready the rest of the way for dinner service. Stiles had been in class, and he had nearly gone fully feral when the idiot teacher had tried to stop him from running out of class. Another student had stepped in and stopped him and told Stiles he would grab up his stuff. Stiles had felt Peter's shock and then the pain of his shoulder. He had been running across the campus when the broken leg had come in. Stiles hadn't even stopped to grab his Jeep. He had known that he was too on edge to try and drive.

Erica had taken down the man by braining him with a cast-iron skillet after he had tried to run after shoving the stove over. She then used some of the zip ties that they used for keeping cords out of the way of things to secure him to another stove and waited for the cops to arrive. Because she knew that she couldn't get the stove up and off of him. Stiles had arrived on the scene first, getting the stove off of Peter's leg and then sitting with him and trying to calm him down. Derek arrived first, getting the radio call about seeing Stiles running through town and knowing exactly where he was headed.

Peter was nearly at the end of needing the sling for his arm, but he still overdid it at work with it. Peter mainly took names for reservations and worked on paperwork, but on occasion, he would sit out and talk, using his arms because he couldn't talk without it seemed. Which was where Peter was sitting when Stiles entered Carinae. Stiles shook his head and laughed as he took in the woman that Peter was talking with. Peter's eyes darted up and glanced at Stiles and then back down to the woman before jumping back to Stiles. He had a look of shock on his face.

"It's not time for you to be off yet," Peter said.

"No. It's lunch."

"Did you get caught up working?" Peter waved his hand at Erica, and she came over with a cup of hot tea for Peter that she set down in front of him. She did not have anything for the woman.

"I see that I'm being ignored now," the woman said.

"Auntie, you've been talking at me for three hours. My Sentinel is late eating lunch, so I assume he got caught up in working and forgot that he needs to eat. I told you that you would not change my mind, and you keep on nattering about. I have told you no. Even Talia has told you no when you tried to get her to force me to do it as my older sister. I will ban you from here. The Sheriff has a soft spot for me, you know."

"Yes, you and your friendship with the Sheriff. I'm shocked a Sentinel would even touch you given your bond with him."

"Excuse me, Ma'am. I'm going to have to ask you to leave," Stiles said.

"Hold your horses. I am not done here, and you can wait." The woman didn't even look up at him. She just kept on staring at Peter.

Peter just looked at her with raised eyebrows before he looked at Stiles.

Stiles just grinned at him and laid his hand on his belt, fingers barely touching his gun, and he walked to stand beside her. "Ma'am."

Peter's aunt just waved her hand and kept looking at Peter. Stiles ignored the door opening and kept his eyes focused on the woman.

"Ah, Sheriff, just in time."

"You called the Sheriff on me?" the woman asked. She finally turned and looked at Stiles, her eyes widening as she took in his Deputy uniform.

"As I said, ma'am. I am going to have to ask you to leave."

"Ugh, of course. that explains it."

"That explains what?" Peter asked.

"No wonder your Sentinel is willing to share. He probably doesn't want to be fired."

"Constance, I thought that I told you that you were not welcome in Beacon Hills anymore?" Noah asked as he walked to the other side of the table.

"It was supposed to be an in and out. Talk sense into Peter to sell me the land so that my boys can have somewhere to live where it's their right to live."

"My land is mine. My father and mother left it to me. You were left what they wanted you to have."

"Also, I kind of want to talk about how you think that I am sharing my Guide with my father," Stiles said.

"Stiles," Noah said.

Constance finally looked up at Stiles, and he could tell the moment that he saw her eyes land on his name tag. They widened.

"I mean, if you two are in some weird relationships because you are friends, what does that mean I have with the rest of the Hales. There are some days I see them more than I see Peter."

"Sentinels and Guides can't be friends."

"Ah, you are one of those. No wonder Peter has never called you anything but the old bag."

Constance puffed up, and she flung her hand out like she was going to slap Peter, but Stiles caught that hand and then used it to get her up and cuffed her.

"And she's also broken her restraining order," Noah said.

"Oh, fun day. I get to arrest a Hale and charge her with attempted assault and breaking a restraining order."

"Thanks for the call, Erica," Noah said.

Stiles read Constance her rights but gladly passed over her to Parrish when he came in. There was the hustle and bustle as she was escorted out, and Stiles dropped down into the seat next to Peter. Erica came over and grabbed the chair that Constance had been sitting in and moved it hell and gone away from Stiles. The smell of her was pissing Stiles off.

"Grilled Chicken Salad?" Erica asked.

"Yeah, that Italian dressing that Boyd makes, the special one, not the standard and like four eggs on it."

Erica nodded and slipped into the back.

"You know, I hate her," Stiles said.

"Yes, well, the feeling is mutual. Talia is pissed off and getting our family lawyer involved. He's going to probably do it for free just to get her into court."

"Why?" Stiles asked.

"On Auntie cheated on him with his best friend while they were engaged. He'd love a reason to get her thrown in jail. And this isn't the first time she's broken."

"What does she want?"

"So Mom and Dad owned a lot of lands here in town. There are a lot of businesses that we own the land and building. It was all split between our siblings when they died. Only Talia and I wanted to stay here, so we used the money that we got and bought the rest from the other two. Auntie thinks that she was owed part of that, even though my parents left what they wanted her to have in the will. Which was a tea set from their grandparents."

"A tea set?" Stiles asked.

"Oh, yes. Ugly fucking thing that was left to Mom, and she hated it. It's been changed who it was going to for a while. Then Auntie pissed her off, and well...that's all she got."

"Revenge tea set, I kind of love that. We need to buy something ugly and pack it up to leave to whoever we want that we hate the most."

Peter was smiling, which was what Stiles was aiming for. Peter didn't need the stress of his aunt doing whatever the hell she wanted. Peter had only ever called her auntie before, and it had taken Stiles a little while to figure out that he said it because he wanted to offend her. It was a name that most called aunts that they liked, not the ones that they hated.

"And when did her thoughts barge into the 1800s? Sentinels and Guides can be friends without bumping uglies. I mean...you and Dad are close despite your age difference. I know several people who are just friends with Guides. It's not like just because you are a Sentinel, you are attracted to every single Guide that there is. It's like saying that someone who is heterosexual is attracted to every single person who is of the opposite gender or sex. Same for homosexuals. That's...I'm sorry that part of your family is fucking idiots." Stiles leaned over and kissed Peter's forehead before he nuzzled at his cheek. "I'm gonna drive you home when I'm done. I have my car. No fighting me. You are stressed and tense, and your muscles have to be hurting. Just go home and relax, and I'll bring dinner home on my way after I get off of shift."

Peter nodded his head.

Hours later, when Stiles let himself into the house, he found Peter asleep on the couch with their puppy. Turtle had gotten knocked up by another dog in the area, and Stiles had gladly taken one of the male puppies. He had even snagged a girl for his Dad. He had trained her up with Peter's help before giving her to his father. They were all quite happy with the little families that they now had.

"Hello," Stiles said as he reached down and petted Aurora's head. He had a swath of white on his forehead, hence his name. Stiles had been happy about having him since it allowed someone to be with Peter all day long when he had first been injured and allowed home. It also got him up a few times to let the puppy out while Stiles worked on getting a doggie door put into the back door.

This life had turned out nothing like what he thought it was going to when he got home, but he wasn't going to trade Peter for anything in the world. Peter was his home, and in this home, there was no war.

# The End

**Author's Note:**

> I write fanfiction for fun. It's a hobby and a stress relief. I refuse to stress over my writing. What you see is what you get. Errors, plot holes, and all. 
> 
> Thank you for reading my story! I will be responding less to comments so please don't take it to heart. I see all comments and love them but most will get just a "Thanks!". 
> 
> Check my profile for other ways to engage with me in social settings.


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